Similes and Metaphors with Langston Hughes

This is designed to be used near the beginning of a poetry unit for middle school. It could be used as an introduction to figurative language, specifically similes and metaphors. Students define simile and metaphor, example famous examples, and then create their own, modeling after the professional. They then examine two short poems by Langston Hughes, putting what they learned into practice. They will identify and examine, analyzing why mostly similes are used in one poem while Hughes relies heavily on metaphors in the other. In the lesson, the teacher should work with the student to understand the purpose of similes and metaphors in general and how they relate to these poems.

I have included both a PDF and a word document version for editing.