A simile that runs on: imagery

What is an imagery question?

Your child is asked to name the device a writer has used, or to find an example of one in a passage.

Three of the four are usually secure by Year 5. A simile compares using like or as. A metaphor describes one thing as though it were another, with no comparing word. Personification gives something that is not a person the behaviour or feelings of one.

That is two minutes' work. The lesson is about the fourth.

The analogy: a simile that runs on

An analogy is awkward because it often has a comparing word in it, exactly like a simile does — so the rule your child has used since Year 4, if it says like, it is a simile, is no longer enough.

A simile is a comparison made openly, with like or as. An analogy is a comparison used to explain or clarify an idea. The difference is what the comparison is for.

Her cheeks were as red as a poppy. The comparison helps you see the colour. That is a simile, and nothing more is being explained.

Revising without making any notes is like trying to carry water in a sieve. The comparison is not there to show you what revising looks like. It is there to help you understand the writer's point: that what goes in runs straight out again. That is what an analogy does.

Notice that the second sentence uses like, so in form it is a simile too. The two labels overlap: an analogy is often built out of a simile and then carried further. When a question offers analogy as a choice and the comparison is explaining an idea, analogy is the better answer.

Two words that are pretending

The people who write these papers know your child has been taught to hunt for like and as. So they put them in sentences where they are doing an entirely different job.

The lorry rumbled up the lane as the rain began. There is an as right there. Is it a simile? No — and the way to know is to ask what the as is doing. In a simile it sets one thing beside another. Most often it comes as a pair: as red as, as quick as. As if and as though can compare too: he ran as if the ground were on fire. Here nothing is being compared. This as means when.

Most children like the new playground. There is a like. But look at what is in front of it — children. This like is the verb. It means enjoy.

Both sentences are literal, and literal is on the answer sheet for exactly this reason. Answering literal is not giving up. Sometimes it is the hardest answer to give.

The diagram puts the two literal sentences beside a real simile, so the three jobs can be compared at a glance.

Finding one in a passage

Once there is a passage in front of your child, nobody points at the sentence any more.

The mistake almost everybody makes is to read the passage through hoping something jumps out. It is slow, and the paper is timed.

Instead, take one technique at a time and scan for its usual clues:

• Simile — hunt for like, for as something as, and for as if or as though. Then check that each one really is comparing.
• Metaphor — there is no comparing word to hunt for. Was or were followed by a or the is one clue (the classroom was a zoo), but a river of shadows has no was at all. Ask whether something is being called a thing it cannot literally be.
• Personification — start with the verbs and ask which of them only a person would do. Then look at describing words and feelings too: the patient moon, the angry sea.

These are clues that point you to a likely sentence, not complete tests. The sentence still has to be read.

And when they find it, write down only the words that carry the picture. A river of shadows — not the whole line it lives in. Marks are lost there that were never lost on the naming questions.

Where do pupils lose marks?

Stopping at like and writing simile. The word tells you something is comparing; it does not tell you what the comparison is for.

Refusing to answer literal, because it feels like a failure.

Quoting the whole sentence when only a few words carry the image.

Try it yourself

Name the device — or say that the sentence is literal, which is sometimes the answer.

1. Her cheeks were as red as a poppy.
2. Revising without making notes is like trying to carry water in a sieve.
3. The lorry rumbled up the lane as the rain began.
4. Most children like the new playground.
5. The wind rattled the windows and shouldered its way under the door.

Show Answers

How much practice does this type need at home?

Hunt for them in what you are already reading. One page, one technique: find me a simile on this page. Then next time, personification, starting with the verbs.

The scanning habit is the part worth building, because naming a device your child has been handed is easy and finding one in four hundred words is not — and it is the second that the paper actually asks for.