Objective
Students will use figures of speech - simile, synonyms and personification - in the course of investigating wildflowers.
Materials
- Nature journals
- Hand lenses
- Peterson’s Field Guide to Wildflowers
Vocabulary
- personification
- simile
- synonym
Procedure
- Discuss with students how nature often serves as inspiration for poetry. Share a few of the following poems:
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s hungry breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree!
- Joyce Kilmer
The Dandelion
O DANDELION, rich and haughty,
King of village flowers!
Each day is coronation time,
You have no humble hours.
I like to see you bring a troop
To beat the blue-grass spears,
To scorn the lawn-mower that would be
Like fate’s triumphant shears,
Your yellow heads are cut away,
It seems your reign is o’er.
By noon you raise a sea of stars
More golden than before.
- Vachel Lindsay
Bees
YOU voluble,
Velvety
Vehement fellows
That play on your
Flying and
Musical cellos,
All goldenly
Girdled you
Serenade clover,
Each artist in
Bass but a
Bibulous rover!
You passionate,
Powdery
Pastoral bandits,
Who gave you your
Roaming and
Rollicking mandates?
Come out of my
Foxglove; come
Out of my roses
You bees with the
Plushy and
Plausible noses!
- Norman Rowland Gale
The Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
- William Wordsworth
Golden Poppies
I watched the golden poppies spill
Like liquid gold across the hill
As petals wilted one by one
And faded with the summer sun.
The plants did not reseed themselves
To golden-glow the hillside shelves;
The rains that washed the mountain’s face
Transplanted them some other place.
But when I walk their trail I find
My feet are light; my heart gold-lined –
Knowing, though they left no chart,
They gladden someone else’s heart.
- June Masters
Design
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On the white Heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth –
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches broth –
A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent Heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?
If design govern in a thing so small.
- Robert Frost
- Discuss similes. A simile is a figure of speech in which one item is compared with another that is different in all but a few significant respects. Use the word “like” or “as” when writing a simile.
Examples:
- The sweater felt like a rabbit’s fur.
- The old man’s fingers were as gnarled as oak branches.
Identify the similes in the poems above.
- Visit your study area and instruct students to search for a wildflower that they cannot identify. They should observe it, making sketches and written notes in their nature journals. Students should make at least three statements using simile while describing the plant’s blossoms, stems, and leaves.
Examples:
- The petals are as yellow as a highlighter.
- The stem is as bristly as a pig’s hide.
- The backs of the leaves are like sandpaper.
- Once students have described the plant using words and pictures, distribute field guides for identification.
- Back in class, have students choose their favorite simile from those they wrote about their wildflowers. Explain to students that they are going to write a simple poem about their wildflower, using simile.
- Explain the term synonym. Synonyms are words that have similar meanings. Guide students through identifying the main idea or word in their similies. Next, they should find four synonyms for that primary idea or word.
- To complete the poems, write the four synonyms on one line. Capitalize the first word and separate each word with a comma. Write the corresponding simile on the second line.
 Examples:
- Aromatic, sweet, perfumed, delicate,
Fragrant as a wild rose in bloom.
- Gossip, prattle, jabber, twaddle,
The starlings chattered like ladies at a tea party.
Have students write at least two more poems using this method.
- Another common technique used in nature poetry is personification. There are two simple ways to create personification. You can give a human condition to a non-human object: “The flowers dance in the wind.” Or, you can compare parts of the non-human objects to parts of the human body: “The tree has branches for arms and leaves for hands.” Examine the poem on the next page for examples of personification.
- As a class, make a list of at least ten human actions such as works, smiles, and sings. Instruct students to copy this list into their nature journals.
- Once again, visit your study area and have students find at least four items from nature to use with different human actions from their list.
- Now have them think of two things that can have human body parts substituted for their own parts, as in the example “The tree has branches for arms and leaves for hands.” Use the objects in a line of poetry.
 Example
- "The faces of the black-eyed susans watched over the meadow as they swayed to the music of the wind."
- Instruct students to find a quiet spot, choose an object from nature, and write a poem about it using personification. Encourage students to choose an object they have not looked at before and use human actions not on the list. Before returning to class, have students share their poetry orally.
- Extend this lesson in nature poetry using Peterson’s Field Guide to Wildflowers. Read aloud the following description of the Calypso or Fairy-slipper in Peterson’s Field Guide to Wildflowers:
 Note the slipperlike lip with its translucent cover, yellow crest, and 2 tiny horns at the ‘toe.’ The broad solitary leaf survives the winter and withers after the plant flowers, to be replaced by another leaf. 3-8 in. Mossy, coniferous woods.”
Characteristics of this wildflower that could be portrayed as human include: lip, slippers, crest, toe. Here is an example of a poetic verse about the Calypso using personification, based on its description in the field guide:
In the shade of a neighboring spruce, a Calypso lifts its proud head.
One slipper dangles casually above the mossy carpet.
- Allow students to choose another wildflower from the field guide, list its characteristics that could be portrayed as human, and write their own poetic verses using personification.
Oak Outside my Window
The old oak outside my window
taps her fingers on the glass,
and I open my window to let her in.
On summer nights, she throws back
her lush green scarf
and sings me a July lullaby.
In autumn she waves her arms
to a harvest tune,
dancing the dance of a thousand colored veils.
When snow falls, she stands watch,
a silent sentinel,
protecting me from all I cannot see.
Spring brings the silver rain,
she drinks up thirstily
and stretches her welcome to the sun.
The old oak outside my house
taps her fingers on the glass again,
and I open the window to welcome my friend.
- Pamela Ditchoff
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