Metaphorical Thinking

Teaching students how to use metaphors seems like something that all students should be taught because we live in a world that really favours using metaphors in every day speech.  Being able to interpret metaphors can serve to be an important life skill for students as they will be able to understand the use of metaphors in speeches, commercials, advertisements, songs and much more.  In a class I was observing, the students were expected to go through the short story they read and pick out all the metaphors and similes that the author used.  The teacher explained that by using metaphors, the author’s writing is that much more exciting and interesting to read.  The students found that finding the similes was a much easier task then finding the metaphors, but once they found the first few they were able to wrap their minds around thinking outside the box. Our “University English brains” are trained to pick up on every metaphor or deeper meaning in the text, but for high school students this is a daunting task at first.

            Some of Gallagher’s examples seemed a bit far fetched to me as I find it difficult to believe that students would take some of the activities seriously, such as drawing the pictures.  Having students create their own metaphors on characters in novels is a great way for them to create new meaning and deeper comprehension.  Using metaphors is yet another effective way for students to practice second draft reading and develop their ability to be analytical thinkers.