Interacting with the Mentor Text:
I use this lesson in January so we can practice all that month with metaphors, and I specifically focus our whole-class metaphorical topic on love so that we are set-up to extend those ideas further for a February poetry lesson we do around Valentine's Day. You could do this lesson anytime, however, and you can certainly use a different emotion than love.
As the years pass, I find more and more students who have never heard the song "Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar; admittedly, it was a "radio staple" when I was in middle school (many, many years ago), but surely it's still being played where my own writers could be hearing it. Apparently not. I guess until it becomes a song used in a commercial as their jingle or until it becomes a song on some new PG-13 comedy's soundtrack, I'm just going to have not be surprised that when I play it for my kids, it could very well be the first time they are hearing it.
Before playing the song, I write the title--Love is a Battlefield--where all students can see it. "Anyone know what love feels like?" I ask. "Anyone agree with this metaphor?"
First, we do a short discussion of what a metaphor is, and how they're different from similes, just to make sure everyone is up to speed with the academic vocabulary I will be using in this lesson. Then, after explaining that good writers establish metaphors as well as extend upon them (which means give explanatory details), I ask them to predict what kind of details might be in the song that explains why love is a battlefield to the author/singer. Tell students, "Even if you've heard the song already, you've probably never thought about the lyrics closely. Before listening to the song today, I want you to discuss with a partner what you think the song is about, knowing its title is Love is a Battlefield. What does that title make you think the song might talk about? Is it going to be about a battlefield in a desert or a meadow or somewhere else? A battlefield moments before a battle begins? A battlefield that has recovered from a war and is now a peaceful place? What attitude about love do you think the writer of this song had? Good attitude or bad attitude?"
Let students generate multiple answers in pairs. Share them out loud, and celebrate ones that are different from others. Say, "A metaphor is great tool for writers, but sometimes you need to extend upon them so your audience knows exactly what kind of battlefield you mean, if you are comparing something to a battlefield."
Play the song. Show its lyrics on an overhead while students listen; you can find the lyrics on-line by using the Google search link I programmed into this sentence. After listening, have students discuss what kind of battlefield the entire song makes them see. Talk about who is fighting. Talk about who is being fought. Ask students to visualize what the battlefield looks like after hearing the song. Ask students what kind of attitude (tone) do they think the song is saying about the emotion. (Information just for teachers: To me, the song is about young love fighting a battle with an older generation. Although there is no real clear picture given of the type of battlefield the "war" is happening on, encourage your students to visualize the battlefield based on this information; good poetry interpretation involves both relying on what's definitely there in the words and what additional, relevant details you can "fill in" from your own experience).
Next, students will be creating an original metaphor for love that they feel they can extend upon. Once tool from WritingFix that I use a lot, can also be found in their wonderful "Going Deep with Compare & Contrast Thinking Guide," which was published back in 2008. Several of the guide's resources are freely accessible at WritingFix's Compare & Contrast Homepage. One of those resources--their color set of 80 Metaphor/Simile Cards--is one that I use a lot with my learners.
I have developed several variations of the thinking "game" I play with the metaphor cards, which I use when I want them to process new information or to review previous lessons' content. The variations are the two bullets below this paragraph's original explanation of the game: Students should be in groups of 4 or 5, and the teacher hands each group between 8 and 15 different cards from the set. Students spread the cards out between them in such a way that all members of the group can easily reach for and take any card if asked. Explain that you will be giving them a thinking prompt, and their task is to find one image in the pile that they can use to make an original connection out loud to the rest of their group. Stress this is a civilized game; there will be no lunging for cards when you have an idea/answer; if someone takes the card you were hoping to grab before you can grab it, you need to politely find a different card. After the teacher gives the thinking prompt--with this lesson, it is "Love is like ________ because _______."--students think, take a card, and as soon as everyone has a card, the person who grabbed first shares his/her simile and explanation, then everyone else follows suit. I usually ask each group to vote on and share the idea that the rest of the group agreed was one of the most thoughtful ideas; this way, the whole class can hear four or five different similes not from their own group. If you have multiple topics to review, have students put their cards back in the center, and give them a different topic to make a new simile with. This is a good game for practicing thoughtful similes and metaphorical comparisons, and it can be used with almost any topic of study.
- Variation #1: Instead of the prompt being "[The topic] is like...," surprise the students once in a while by making it "[The topic] is not like..." They now must choose a picture that doesn't represent the idea and give an explanation as to why there's a difference instead of a similarity. I call this variation "Thinking in the negative space." I have a lesson at WritingFix--Start with What Isn't There--that promotes the same type of thinking
- Variation #2: Ask students to to find a card that works for the topic you've given, but to share nothing out loud. When everyone has a card and no one has said a word, have them all pass their card to the person to their left. The person on the left needs to say, "I think you choose this card because you were going to say, 'The topic is like this picture because_____.'" Sometimes the student accurately predicts the other student's explanation, but more often than not, the other student says, "Actually I was thinking they were similar because______." Because you often end up with two answers per card playing this variation, I call it "The two-for-one" variation.
Setting Up the Initial Writer's Notebook Page:
I have become such a strong proponent of using writer's notebooks during pre-writing--the kind of tools discussed by Ralph Fletcher (at right) in his A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You. There's really no better way to pre-write than to have students create a fun page in their writer's notebooks that invests them in an upcoming writing assignment or thinking task. Fletcher gives lots of advice on turning students into "collectors" of language--ones who save favorite words, quotes, etc.--on pages of their writer's notebooks. I created this writer's notebook metaphor lesson, thinking original metaphors could be another piece of language students might collect. After students create the two notebook pages suggested with this lesson, they can be encouraged to further collect metaphors about any topic that occurs to them in the future, and they can be encouraged to use more metaphorical ideas in their writing.
Explain, "Inspired by Pat Benatar's unique metaphor about love, I want you to dedicate a page in your notebooks to four original love metaphors that you think up during this week. I want you to think of and create a lot of metaphors so that you can choose your four best to explain with detail and then illustrate. Next month, we'll be using one of these metaphors for a Valentine-inspired poetry assignment, so you really want to make sure you have some interesting choices on this notebook page by week's end."
If students need a jump-start for their first (of four) love metaphors, I let them click the button on the following interactive prompt I built for WritingFix.
As you can see on my teacher model below, I require (at least) two details with each metaphor that explains--or expands--the comparison; some will just want to make the comparison, but they must extend the idea with further details.
(Click here for a really large version of this notebook page.)
Extended Metaphors as a Writing Across the Curriculum Challenge:
I happen to share my middle school students with the same math, science, and social studies teachers, which is a wonderful teaching situation; I work very hard to make sure many of my lessons that teach unique writing tasks (like this one) have a "part 2" to them; during the "part 2," our students specifically carry the writing technique I've taught them to their other content classes with the assignment they are to bring back--in this case--ideas for extended metaphors to work on in my classroom. In my Language Arts room, once they have brought ideas back from the other content areas, we work on shaping those ideas so they are the best, small pieces of writing they can be. In an elementary school context, where the same teacher is providing all the different content areas, this thinking can be easily encouraged by the same teacher.
When the students have completed both part 1 and part 2 of this month-long notebook task, I can tell my teaching colleagues that their students are ready to use extended metaphors as a new tool in their learning logs and interactive notebooks in those classes.
With the love metaphor page completed, I inform my students they will become "collectors of metaphorical ideas " in their other classes over the next three weeks. As they take notes, do activities, and learn in their other core areas of study, they are to always be thinking, "Could I translate this idea into a extended metaphor back in Mr. Harrison's class?" Every day in my English class, I remind them to do this, and I allow them to talk to each other for about five minutes in small groups to throw ideas back and forth based on that day or the previous day's math, science, and social studies lessons. One day a week (I like Thursdays), I stop class ten or fifteen minutes early and have students partner-up, share the metaphorical ideas they have thought of, ask for revision help from the group to make their metaphors stronger, check each other's spelling and punctuation, then copy them neatly onto a page we've designated in their notebooks. When I made my teacher model, I photographed my page before I started collecting new metaphors for the other content areas, and I show it to students so they set-up a similar page that allows for "future collecting and publishing of metaphors."
(Click here to open/print a really large version of this notebook model, which can be printed on legal-sized paper or zoomed in on.)
As far as this task's timeline, I explain, "If you were to be really doing this task diligently, I would expect you that have a new metaphor for all three--math, science, and social studies--ready to go every week; that way, in three weeks, every student will have a new extended metaphor--one for each subject area." It doesn't perfectly work out this way for every student, but it's a goal for them to aim for, and many do get there because of my daily reminders.
Here is my writer's notebook model I show them after week #1. If you're making your own model, I suggest you photograph the page as it develops this way; I find showing all three of my finished metaphors at once can be a bit daunting to my students. Please note that my across-the-curriculum metaphors all are extended with at least three details:
(Click here for a stand-alone version of this page that can be printed on legal-sized paper.)
Here is my writer's notebook model that I show after week #2 of collecting.
(Click here for a stand-alone version of this page that can be printed on legal-sized paper.)
Here is my writer's notebook model I show them after week #3:
(Click here for a stand-alone version of this page that can be printed on legal-sized paper.)
Remember, the rough draft for these extended metaphors should go on scratch paper. Only after students have checked their spellings and shared out loud in a group, asking for revision suggestions, are they allowed to carefully transfer the metaphor into the writer's notebook on the left-hand side of the two-page spread. I want these metaphor collections to be "shiny examples" rather than rough draft examples.
Use Extended Metaphors as a Processing Tool in Future Lessons:
Our students keep interactive notebooks, not only in language arts but also in math, science, and social studies. An interactive notebook is a place where students can a) record learned information in their own words and also b) reflect on the learning in a manner that feels right to their own learning styles. We attempt to give students many options at the end of a lesson to creatively or logically reflect on what has been learned in their own manner. Extended metaphors are a great option for reflection that definitely appeals to some students' learning style.
Metaphors will naturally be harder for some students than they are for others, but I believe it to be great language practice to continually try to get better at something. At least once a month after establishing these two notebook pages, I have all students process something new they've learned using an extended metaphor, and we celebrate really excellent ones out loud or by recording them somewhere in the class: on top of the white board, on our classroom blog, on a bulletin board, etc. For my students who really struggle with the metaphorical-thinking requirement, I often pair those students up with a skilled-at-metaphor student, asking the pair to create two original comparisons as opposed to the one metaphor I ask students working by themselves; the more skilled metaphor student usually writes both, but the student who is not as skilled learns a lot listening to the skilled students' thinking.
In addition to using extended metaphors as a processing tool in my own classroom, I remind my three content colleagues to encourage them in their classrooms' interactive notebooks.
The best thing that happens after teaching this format is that you will have several students who will process information using the format without being asked. For the rest of the year, I am always delighted by the students who independently approach me, saying, "I thought of a new extended metaphor last night, Mr. Harrison."
A Follow-up Writing Lesson for Language Arts:
By the way, I have an iPod writing lesson posted at WritingFix that I do after students have made the four extended love metaphors inspired by Pat Benatar's song. I created this lesson as part of the NNWP's awesome iPods Across the Curriculum Project in 2008. This lesson serves as my February/Valentine's Day poetry lesson. You can access my extended writing lesson (which has great student samples!) using the link below:
An Invitation to Share Students' Two-Page Extended Metaphor Notebook Spreads:
You will have students who create awesome notebook pages inspired by this activity--ones that should serve as models for future students who go through this writing task. I hope you'll consider photographing and sharing any students' notebook page that really are inspirational. Tell your students you're going to choose the three best notebook pages and post them at WritingFix's Ning; this is a fabulous way to motivate your writers, and tell your students they could very easily have their notebook pages seen by the tens-of-thousands of teachers and writers who visit our free-to-access educational site annually.
The link below will take you to our posting page specifically set up for this lesson. And hey, I'd love to see teachers sharing their own models of this assignment too!
Click here to visit our ning's posting page,
where you can post photographs of student notebook pages.
(If I end up posting your students' notebook pages here at this page, I will send you a complimentary copy of any of my workshop packets/products!)
