“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops, at all. – Emily Dickinson
This excerpt from the famous Dickinson poem named hope calls it a thing with feathers that sits in one’s soul and sings a song.
Now we all know that hope does not really have feathers and neither can it sit and sing but we still somehow understand and relate to the meaning behind this poem.
That is the beauty of personification. It gives human qualities to inanimate objects and abstract feelings just so we can understand the real emotion being conveyed behind them. Although, this part of figurative language is not always easy to spot and comprehend. This blog highlights various games and activities that will help learners become proficient in spotting, understanding, and even using personification themselves.
Interesting games to teach personification
Personification can be observed in various forms of art, ranging from poems and stories to movies and even paintings. Here are some of the activities that will help the learners better identify and understand the art behind personification. The games listed below are useful for fostering a competitive atmosphere among pupils. It strengthens understanding of the notion of personification and promotes an interactive learning environment.
1. What’s Human Quality?
Personification is all about giving human qualities to objects or other materials in nature. This game focuses on achieving maximum answers from students in a creative fashion.
- To start this game, print various pictures of different objects
- Put them in a bowl
- Divide students into teams of 3 members each
- Each team picks one card and has 1 minute to make Personification statements on it
- For example, if the picture is of a tree, students may say – The tree is dancing in joy
- The team to give the maximum number of statements in 1-minute wins
Such a game helps students develop critical thinking. They also learn to assemble more human qualities into objects.
2. Fancy, Fancy Dress!
Dressing up as different personalities is common but this activity focuses on dressing up as objects or non-living things.
- To conduct this activity, ask students to dress up as different objects – a bottle, tree, wind, or a t-shirt
- They can make posters and wear them to represent the object
- Now, they need to talk about the object as a person using maximum personified statements
This creative activity helps students understand how they can attach human qualities and emotions to different objects. It strengthens their imagination too.
3. Everything Around Me!
Students can best learn from their environments through observations and recognizing patterns.
- To conduct this activity, ask students to roam around in the school, including play areas, the ground, or the canteen
- Now, ask them to enlist different statements where objects had qualities of human
- For example, they may say, the stones were sitting still, or the chalks were making noise with each other in the box
As students get exposed to the outside world, they are more likely to develop imagination skills. It also enhances creative thinking, thereby improving communication.
4. Guess Who
For this activity, the educator will have to prepare a bowl with chits full of everyday, common objects written on them.
The class can be divided into teams of 4-5 students each. Teams will take turns sending a member who will pick a chit and then, through their actions try to explain what the object is written on the chit is. For example, if they get a broom, they might use their arms to imitate sweeping on the floor to collect dust. The team will have to guess the object in under 30 seconds. In the end, the team with the most correct guesses will win.
This game will act like a reverse personification, where the humans will be taking up the properties of objects. The educator can point this out and teach students how this as well, is a type of personification in itself.
5. 3 Clues
For this activity as well, the educator will have to prepare chits with commonly personified objects and situations written on them.
The class will again be divided into teams with 4 to 5 students in each team. The teams will take turns sending one person to pick a chit. The task of that person will then be to give three clues, in the form of phrases of commonly associated action verbs with the object while they are personified. For example, the individual can say “the object howls at night”, “the object caresses my cheek in winter”, etc. while trying to hint at the “wind”. The task of the team will be to guess the object. The team with the most correct guesses will win.
In this game, the students will have to actively use their knowledge of personification they might have read or heard, or seen to give as well as understand clues on the spot.
6. My favorite poem
For this activity, the educator will have to arrange a sound system and preferably a screen as well.
The students will bring their favorite songs or poems to the class. They will play the song for everyone or read the poem. The task of the rest of the class will then be to find instances of personification in the classmates’ favorite poems and/or songs.
While discussing various instances of personification, the students will not only learn what personification is but will also learn how it is used and how to identify it in various forms of poetry in daily life.
7. Find me a verb
For this activity as well, the educator will have to prepare chits with commonly personified objects and situations written on them.
The class will be divided into two teams with an equal number of students in each. The teams will take turns picking a chit and seeing what object they get assigned. Based on the object, the task of the team will be to come up with as many personifying action verbs for the object as they can in under 45 seconds. For example, if the team gets water, they can say words like “gushing”, “waving”, “dancing”, etc. The team to come up with the most number of words will get the highest points and end up winning.
This fun game will help students think on their feet and quickly remember the various uses of personifying action verbs they have read as well as come up with new ones on the spot.
8. To personify or not
For this activity, the educator will have to prepare slides with various excerpts from poems, books, movie dialogues, etc., all using different types of figurative language. Hence, this activity can be an add-on to the various figurative language games.
In this activity, the class will be divided into 5 teams with an equal number of students in each. The teams will be shown one excerpt at a time. They will be given a chance to read it and state whether it is an instance of personification or not under 10 seconds. After choosing, the teams will also have to explain the reason behind their choice. If a team chooses wrong, they will be eliminated from the competition. At the end of the slides, the remaining teams that have been chosen correctly so far can either play another round or all be declared the winners.
This activity will help students learn how to identify personification in different forms of media and written as well as spoken words.
9. Write me a sonnet
For this activity, the class will be divided into two teams with an equal number of students in each.
The opposing teams assign each other three random objects and five action verbs. They will try to make the objects and action words as unrelated and eccentric as possible to make things harder for their opponents. The task of each team would then be to use these verbs and objects to together come up with a short poem or sonnet.
This activity will help students use their understanding of figurative language, more specifically personification, to come up with their own poems.
10. It’s Showtime
For this activity, the educator will have to arrange a show, movie, cartoon, or short clips from several of them. They will also have to arrange the system to show these clips in the class.
Animated movies, cartoons, and shows are rich in personification as most of their characters in themselves are inanimate objects doing things that humans usually do. The task of the students will be to note down whatever instances of personification they can find in the clips or the movie shown in the class.
In the discussion that will follow, in which all the students will share what they found instances of personification, students will learn from each other, noticing things that they might have missed.
11. Catch the ball
For this game, the educator just needs to bring a ball to the class. The class will be made to sit in a circle. They will then decide on an object who they will end up making one of the main characters in this game of one-line story with a twist. Whatever object they decide on, for example, an apple, one student will randomly be given the ball by the educator and they will have to start a story while personifying the pre-decided object, in this case, the apple.
In this case, the student can say “One fine day, the apple was traveling down the bumpy roads of Texas.” Then the student will randomly pass the ball and the one who catches it has to continue the story in such a way that every sentence they say should have something being personified. If a student fails to personify, they will be eliminated from the circle.
Through this activity, the students will learn how to come up with new and interesting ways of personifying different objects. It will exercise their creativity and quick-thinking abilities.
12. Match me
For this activity, the educator will have to prepare various phrases personifying different objects. They will then have to cut these phrases into half such that one part, either the object or the personifying action verbs, is cut out. These cut-out parts will be written on chits and put in a bowl. The remaining half of the sentence should be displayed or written on the board.
The class will again be divided into two teams with an equal number of students in each. The teams will take turns sending one student at a time to pick a chit. Once the student picks up the chit, their task will be to correctly place it with its other half, completing its personification. The team with the highest number of correct matches will be declared the winner.
This game will teach students commonly used types of personifying action verbs. Learning about them using a game will ensure higher understanding and longer retention.
Conclusion
Personification is a powerful poetic tool that while comparing abstract concepts and inanimate objects to humans and their characteristics, brings the written word to life. But, it isn’t always easy to understand. Using various games and activities in the classroom can help engage learners with various forms of art and their use of personification. They can not only understand the meaning being conveyed by it but can themselves become proficient at using the tool of personification.
Furthermore, games and activities are a helpful way to teach the concept of personification in a creative manner. Along with this, teachers and parents can also opt for online games, picture books, and flashcards to teach the concept. As students learn this concept at an early age, they are more likely to be creative in written and spoken communication. Most games and activities include active learning so students are at benefit from active participation, critical thinking, and practical learning experience. Furthermore, these activities can also boost logical thinking and critical thinking, both of these being poles apart as thinking modules.
I am Shweta Sharma. I am a final year Masters student of Clinical Psychology and have been working closely in the field of psycho-education and child development. I have served in various organisations and NGOs with the purpose of helping children with disabilities learn and adapt better to both, academic and social challenges. I am keen on writing about learning difficulties, the science behind them and potential strategies to deal with them. My areas of expertise include putting forward the cognitive and behavioural aspects of disabilities for better awareness, as well as efficient intervention. Follow me on LinkedIn