Overview | How are metaphors used in both writing and everyday life? What is the role of metaphors in shaping our reality? In this lesson, students raise their awareness of the prevalence and function of metaphors in our everyday language by investigating common metaphors in poetry and song, analyzing the use of metaphors in a variety of short texts and exploring the metaphors in use throughout their daily life.
Materials | Student journals, slips of paper with metaphors for love from songs and poems (see below), computers with Internet access or print copies of The New York Times
Warm-Up | Before students arrive, write “Love is _______________” on the board. As they enter, ask them to use their journals to fill in the blank with a noun (and an article, if necessary) that best represents their feelings about love.
After two minutes, invite students to share their sentences. Ask the class if they noticed any similarities. If no one mentions it, explain that these sentences are metaphors. Take the time to review or introduce the definition of metaphor and various types of metaphors, and to distinguish them from similes.
Then tell students to pair up, and give each pair a slip of paper with one of the following lines from love songs and poems:
- “Your love is smallpox” – Paul and Storm, “Your Love Is (Love Song With Metaphor)”
- “Love is a battlefield” – Pat Benatar, “Love is a Battlefield”
- “Love is a rose” – Neil Young, “Love Is a Rose”
- “Love, it is a river” – Amanda McBroom, “The Rose”
- “Love is a banana peel” – Ben Weisman and Fred Wise, “I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell,” (sung by Elvis Presley)
- “Oh, love is a journey with water and stars” – Pablo Neruda, Sonnet 12
- “[Love] is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken” – William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
- “Love is a truck. Love is a wall” – Connie Kaldor, “Love Is a Truck”
- “Love’s a loaded gun” – Alice Cooper, “Love’s a Loaded Gun”
- “Love is a losing game” – Amy Winehouse, “Love Is a Losing Game”
- “Love is the drug” – Roxy Music, “Love Is the Drug”
- “Love is a song that never ends” – “Love is a Song” from “Bambi”
Explain that the task is to “unpack” one of the lyrics, explaining what the comparison being made tells us about love.
After students share their observations about what these metaphors mean, discuss them, using these questions:
- What do these metaphors say about love? In what ways do they ring true for you? Do any of them strike you as misleading, misguided or silly?
- Why do you think songs and poems often use metaphor to discuss love? Why use comparisons and analogies to express views about love?
- What other metaphors can you recall from popular love songs? What do these metaphors reveal about love?
- What kinds of metaphors do we use to talk about love – in songs and otherwise? What does this tell us about how love is perceived in our culture?
- Why are metaphors so common in love songs? Can you think of any songs that talk about love directly, without using metaphors or similes?
Related | In “Poetry for Everyday Life,” the Op-Ed columnist David Brooks explores the “pedestrian poetry” of metaphors in the language we use every day:
To be aware of the central role metaphors play is to be aware of how imprecise our most important thinking is. It’s to be aware of the constant need to question metaphors with data — to separate the living from the dead ones, and the authentic metaphors that seek to illuminate the world from the tinny advertising and political metaphors that seek to manipulate it.
Most important, being aware of metaphors reminds you of the central role that poetic skills play in our thought. If much of our thinking is shaped and driven by metaphor, then the skilled thinker will be able to recognize patterns, blend patterns, apprehend the relationships and pursue unexpected likenesses.
Read the entire column with your class, using the questions below.
Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:
- What is notable about the sentence David Brooks quotes at the beginning of his column? What does this sentence demonstrate about how we use language?
- What examples of common metaphors does Mr. Brooks include in his piece?
- Why do we use so many metaphors?
- What do the examples Mr. Brooks draws from Judaism illustrate about the relationship between language and culture?
- Why do you think he decided to promote awareness of our use of metaphors by writing a column about them?
From The Learning Network
- Lesson: Mixing Metaphors with Politics
- Lesson: Mathematical Metaphors in Art
- Lesson: Are You a Fish Out of Water? Learning English Idioms
- Readers’ Comments: Poetry for Everyday Life
- Currents: Language as a Blunt Tool of the Digital Age
- Column: On Language
Around the Web
Activity | Situate small groups of students at computers with Internet access or give each group print copies of The New York Times. Assign different groups to different sections of the paper, like opinion, sports, science, arts and style, in addition to the main news coverage. Tell them to work together to find and circle or highlight, or jot down, as many metaphors and instances of metaphorical language as they can in five minutes.
When the time is up, whip around and invite all groups to call out some of the metaphors they found in the newspaper. Then have them share what they noticed. Did any of the sections tend to have more metaphors, or more colorful ones? Or do metaphors seem to be fairly equally distributed?
Choose at least three of the metaphors they found, and closely examine each one as a class. What meaning does it convey? What tone does it set? What effect does it have? How does it help the reader understand the subject matter? Were they surprised by the number of metaphors in the newspaper?
Tell students to return to their groups and select any three of the sentences they found that have metaphors and rewrite them, avoiding the use of any metaphors at all.
Then, have each group team up with another group to share the original sentences and their versions. What’s the difference? What has been lost in the rewritten sentence? Has anything been gained? Which do you prefer, and why?
Reconvene as a class to share sentences and thoughts. Discuss what this exercise reveals about why writers of fiction, poetry, songs and nonfiction – even news – use metaphors, and about the power of metaphors. Do they agree or disagree with David Brooks that “To be aware of the central role metaphors play is to be aware of how imprecise our most important thinking is”?
Going Further | Remind students that, as the column noted, people use metaphors, on average, every 10 to 25 words. Ask if they think this sounds reasonable and then tell them that they are going to find out by capturing metaphors in daily life.
Students note metaphors they overhear in conversations at home or in places where they can listen anonymously, like a coffee shop, bus or train, shopping center or park. If they want to include family conversations, be sure that they tell their families that about the eavesdropping activity and get permission. Specify a minimum period of time that students should spend listening for and recording metaphors over the course of, say, three days.
Then have students analyze their data by counting metaphorical uses of language and assessing their frequency and contexts. How frequently were metaphors used? Every 10-25 words? What kinds of metaphors did they hear? Who spoke them, and in what context? Which did they find particularly interesting? Were there any differences among the types of metaphors they encountered in songs, poems, newspaper articles and daily conversation?
After sharing results as a group, discuss what our use of metaphor does to our thinking. In what ways does it guide our thoughts? Challenge them? Distort and multiply or reduce them?
Students might also use their direct experience with everyday metaphor to respond in writing to the first paragraph listed under the heading “Concepts We Live By” in an excerpt from the Lakoff and Johnson book “Metaphors We Live By.”
Another way to take this activity further is for students to analyze a metaphor in any text that they respond to in some way. Texts to consider might include additional Times articles, song lyrics, advertisements (including political ads), poems, political speeches and dramatic monologues. In their analysis essays, they should consider the central metaphor at hand as well as others that appear and recur in the excerpt, what type of metaphor it is, how it relates to and expresses the central theme or idea of the piece and its effect on the reader or audience. In a future class, students share their selections and analyses.
1. Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process.
2. Uses the stylistic and rhetorical aspects of writing.
4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes.
5. Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process.
6. Uses skills and strategies to read a variety of literary texts.
7. Uses general skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts.
8. Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes.
1. Understands that group and cultural influences contribute to human development, identity and behavior.
Arts and Communication
4. Understands ways in which the human experience is transmitted and reflected in the arts and communication.
Life Skills: Working With Others
1. Contributes to the overall effort of a group.
4. Displays effective interpersonal communication skills.
3. Understands the relationships among science, technology, society and the individual.