This document defines and provides examples of personification, which is giving human traits to non-living objects. It explains that personification creates word pictures by describing things like sailboats dancing, flames eating hungrily, and trees bending meekly. The document provides sentences using personification and asks readers to identify the objects being personified. It encourages practicing personifying other objects like stars, grass, and night. Poets are noted to use personification to create vivid images with words.

1. Personification
Personification is giving human traits (qualities,
feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living
objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas).
For example: The window winked at me.

2. Turn to the window.
Do you see it winking?
Are you really trying?
Look hard- Can you
see it yet?

3. Gotcha!!!
No, of-course you don’t –
windows can’t wink -silly!
 The verb, wink, is a human action. A window
is a non-living object.
 TaDa!! Personification!

4. Here are some personification
examples.
 The sailboat danced gracefully past us.
 The flames ate hungrily at the burning house.
 The once-proud trees bent meekly before the
storm.
 The broad, flat rock lay sunning itself by the
stream.

5. Notice how personification creates a
word picture.
Your Turn. Can you recognize the
personification in each sentence below?
1. The fog crept silently into the valley.
2. The tree fought the wind with its branches
3. The computer devoured information all
day long.
4. The hikers left the meadow and were
swallowed by the forest.

6. Let’s practice…..
Look at the words below. Try to give
each word a quality of a human and
write a sentence in your writers
journal.
Now quickly draw the literal version
of one of your sentences on the
page- share with your tablemates.
Stars Grass
Table Night

7. What is the object being personified
and the meaning of the personification
in these sentences?
 The wind sang her mournful song through the
falling leaves.
 The microwave timer told me it was time to
turn my TV dinner.
 The video camera observed the whole scene.
 The strawberries seemed to sing, "Eat me
first!"

8. With your group, determine the object being
personified
& what the personification is.
1. The winter wrapped its icy claws around Northeast Pennsylvania.
2. The alarm clock screeched that it was time to get up.
3. Fear grabbed me as I heard footsteps behind me.
4. The washer sputtered and groaned as it removed the mud
from the knees of my old jeans.
5. The printer spit out more copies than I needed.
6. The branches of the tree pointed to the old dirt road.
7. The flood waters swallowed the trees in one big gulp.
8. The stars winked at us from the night sky.
9. Listening to the piano sing its happy tune made me want to
dance.
10. That carrot cake with the cream cheese icing is calling my name.

9. Poets often use this form of
Figurative Language to
create exciting visual images
with words.

10. What characteristics does this
snow have?
SNOW
Snow speaks to the people its
falling above in the glooming
sunlight.
Its white sparkling voice
echoes
as it falls through
the air.
By Jake

11. "Summer Grass" by Carl
Sandburg
Summer grass aches and whispers
It wants something: it calls and sings; it pours
out wishes to the overhead stars.
The rain hears; the rain answers; the rain is
slow coming;
The rain wets the face of the grass.

12. April Rain Song
Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid
drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night.
And I love the rain.
by Langston Hughes

13.  What are Langston Hughes'
feelings toward rain?
 What does he want his
audience to do?
 How does personification help
him make his point?
 What do you notice about the
language he uses to describe
the rain?