Personification Explained: Examples and Uses for 6th Graders

📚 Quick Study Guide: Personification Power!

• 💡 What is Personification? It's a literary device where you give human qualities or actions to inanimate objects or animals. Think of it as making non-human things act like people!
• 🗣️ Key Idea: Non-human things (like a tree 🌳, the wind 💨, or a book 📖) are described as doing human actions (like talking, whispering, or telling a story).
• 🎯 Purpose: Writers use personification to make their writing more vivid, imaginative, and engaging. It helps readers connect with the non-human things in a new way.
• ✍️ How to Spot It: Look for verbs (action words) that usually describe people, but are being used to describe an object or animal. For example, "The wind whispered secrets." (Wind can't really whisper, people whisper!)
• 🚫 Not a Simile/Metaphor: Personification *directly* gives human traits. Similes use "like" or "as" (e.g., "The wind was *like* a whisper"). Metaphors *say* one thing *is* another (e.g., "The wind *is* a secret-teller"). Personification is just the action.
• 🌟 Examples:
  • ⏰ "The clock *ran* out of time." (Clocks don't run!)
  • 🌸 "The flowers *danced* in the breeze." (Flowers don't dance!)
  • 📖 "The book *called* to me from the shelf." (Books don't call!)

🧠 Practice Quiz: Test Your Personification Skills!

1. Which sentence uses personification?

1. A. The sun was a giant orange in the sky.
2. B. The leaves fell like tiny parachutes.
3. C. The old house groaned in the wind.
4. D. Her smile was as bright as the sun.

2. What human quality is given to an object in the sentence: "The alarm clock screamed at me this morning."?

1. A. Loudness
2. B. Urgency
3. C. Screaming
4. D. Annoyance

3. Identify the personification in the following sentence: "The stars winked in the dark night sky."

1. A. Stars
2. B. Winked
3. C. Dark night
4. D. Sky

4. Which sentence does NOT contain personification?

1. A. The car coughed and sputtered before starting.
2. B. The branches waved goodbye as we drove away.
3. C. The rain poured down from the clouds.
4. D. The thunder grumbled in the distance.

5. "The wind whispered secrets through the trees." What is the wind doing that is a human action?

1. A. Blowing
2. B. Moving
3. C. Whispering
4. D. Making noise

6. Why do writers use personification?

1. A. To make sentences longer.
2. B. To confuse the reader.
3. C. To make writing more interesting and vivid.
4. D. To replace all verbs in a story.

7. In the sentence, "The moon played hide-and-seek with the clouds," what is being personified?

1. A. The clouds
2. B. Hide-and-seek
3. C. The moon
4. D. The sky