Today’s Agenda

1. Today’s Agenda • Do Now • Personification Lecture • Practice personifying descriptions • Share some descriptions as a class • Pre-writing for “personification” vignette • Begin writing “personification” vignette

2. Personification Creative Writing Mr. Way 11/5/13

3. Standards Based Instruction ELA 11-12 Writing2.1 Write fictional, autobiographical, or biographical narratives: • C. Describe with concrete sensory details the sights, sounds, and smells of a scene and the specific actions, movements, gestures, and feelings of the characters; use interior monologue to depict the characters' feelings. • E. Make effective use of descriptions of appearance, images, shifting perspectives, and sensory details.

4. SWBAT • Identify instances of personification • Incorporate personification appropriately into their creative writing • Avoid improper use of personification

5. What is personification? • A literary element • Definition: to ascribe human emotions, actions, or characteristics to something that is not a human. • Ex. A lazy breeze blew across his back as he lay in his hammock.

6. What is personification good for? • Scenery description builds atmosphere – it to give the general vibe of the scene. • Personifying aspects of the scenery allows you to use key words that set the mood. • Ex. A lazy breeze blew across his back as he lay in his hammock. • Although the word “lazy” is describing the breeze, it is also setting the mood for the guy lazily napping in a hammock.

7. Setting Mood Example 2 • “A menacing bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. As the thunder threatened to shatter my windows, I tried to listen for his footsteps. I knew it wouldn’t be long before our final confrontation.” • See how the description of the storm tells us that the confrontation will be dangerous/threatening?

8. Example 3 • “As I stood alone in the basement, I could feel the shadows breathing down my neck.” • Shadows don’t actually breathe, but this gives us the sense that the person is feeling paranoid, as though there’s somebody behind them.

9. When To Use Personification • Personification is used to set the mood. • Therefore, you will want to use it when: • The mood is relevant • The mood is changing • Remember, every sentence should either advance the action or reveal character.

10. Perspective and Personification • I advise that you avoid using personification when you are narrating from third person perspective. • Third person is usually an omniscient being talking, and so it should just give the facts as much as possible.

11. Perspective and Personification 2 • If it’s a character from the story narrating, however, the way they personify things reveals their character as well as setting mood • Ex. “Through a hole in the clouds, I felt the reassuring warmth of the sun against my tear-stained cheeks, as though old Sol knew what I had just gone through.”

12. Summary • Personification is an excellent tool for setting mood. • Don’t overuse it. If done too often, it starts seeming cheap. • Personification is best when it’s a character using it, because they’re talking about their own experiences, rather than facts.