Final Final Sample - Simile

Final Final Sample

Simile

Knowledge – a simile is a comparison of two different things using the words “like” or “as”.

Understanding – Similes help describe something better than using adjectives because they take the thing you are talking about and compare it to something different with similar characteristics.

Application – Here is an application of the principle of simile. 

“There was a quivering in the grass which seemed like the departure of souls.”

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

This shows how much better Hugo describes a quivering in the grass than if he has said it was “an eery, creepy quivering in the grass”.  “The departure of souls” brings to mind spirits or ghosts leaving their bodies or this earth, and it gives us a much starker feeling of eeriness or creepiness than if we had just used those adjectives.

Analyze – To understand why similes work, you must look at effective similes that compare very poignant, colorful things.  A simile format is “__________ is like a ___________” or “____________ is as _________ as a __________.”  This format does not just work for any two things you want to compare.  You must think of the traits you are trying to emphasize in the object you are discussing and then find something to compare it to that has those traits amplified.  This is key in similiing.  And yes, I just made up that word.

“The day was boring.”

What other things are boring?  Vanilla ice cream, soggy bread, a newspaper in Yiddish, folding cloth diapers for a Mormon family, sharpening pencils for standardized testing, stuffing envelopes for a losing candidate. 

You take something that is also boring and you create a simile.  “The day was as boring as soggy bread.”

Evaluate – similes have value to me because when I try to explain something without using similes, it often comes out boring…as boring as sharpening pencils for standardized testing.  It makes my writing more vivid, interesting, engaging.  It makes it as engaging as riding the dolphins at Sea World.

Create – Similes make writing as engaging as riding the dolphins at Sea World.  Trying to create a simile is as difficult as solving a crossword puzzle in Norwegian.

(This example took 35 minutes)