Anecdotal Evidence

Teaching is hard.

I taught a quick lesson on similes today, a topic that should be review for sixth graders. After the warm-up discussion What's your favorite form of figurative language? we moved on to the poetry challenge. 

Students were given the definition of simile, a list of examples, and the direction to write a poem which was a chain of tnen similes. Then we looked at a model, discussed the poet's choices, and moved into 20 minutes of workshop time. 

As the young poets wrote, I circulated through the room, answering questions and offering advice. Write about your dog, I might suggest, or your little brother, and then I'd stay until there were a couple of lines of similes and a direction to work in. 

When kids were finished, there was an additional Jolly Rancher challenge to come give me a simile about themselves. "I'm done!" one writer exclaimed triumphantly, brandishing his. poem with 10 fine similes about his dog. "What's the Jolly Rancher challenge?" 

"You know where to find it," I told him. "Go read the directions and come back." 

He returned a minute later with his iPad in hand, reading from the screen. "It says to tell you a simile about me," he said. 

"Go ahead," I replied, "Let's hear it!" 

"I don't remember what a simile is," he said. "Did we learn that?"