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Revising for Language and Writer’s Craft Language Activity: Using Personification
Personification is a trick that writers use to add creative detail in their writing. When you use personification, you give objects, animals, or ideas the qualities that you would normally give to a person. Typically, writers use several different techniques to create personification, sometimes combining them:
Review of Personification Techniques:
ACADEMIC VOCABULARY Personification is a technique in which non- human aspects of a story are described with human qualities.
Technique
Assigning human actions
Assigning human emotions or thoughts
11. Personification opens up new opportunities to be creative with description. Use the scenarios below to practice using personification. Be sure to use a variety of techniques in your responses:
Use personification to describe a storm. Consider the sound of the wind, the dark, cloudy sky, thunder, lightning, etc.
Use personification to describe a classroom during a long, grueling test. Consider the clock on the wall, the creak of the desks, the sound of pencils on paper, perhaps a nice, sunny day out the window, etc.
Use personification to describe a small sailboat out in rough seas. Consider the way the water might move the boat, the waves, the sound of the wind or water, seagulls overhead, etc.
Use personification to describe an old rooster in a barnyard. Consider his personality, attitude, intentions, etc.
The alarm rang.
Non-model
The green pigs snorted at the red birds.
Assigning human body parts
The sun’s rays lit the mountain side.
Assigning personal pronouns
The clock stopped ticking.
The green pigs mocked and taunted the birds.
The alarm screamed angrily.
The sun’s fingers tickled the mountain’s side.
The clock lost her belief in time, and stopped ticking.
Writing Workshop 7
• Narrative Nonfiction 7
Model
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