Writing for the Reader
Fourth-graders learn to use figurative language.
One of the attributes of JCDS’s Portrait of a Graduate is that students learn to communicate thoughtfully and effectively. Fourth-grade teacher Ms. Katryna Fahlgren is helping her students practice exactly that.
The fourth-graders have been busy writing—and revising—personal narratives. The goal is not only to tell what happened, but to help a reader see it, feel it, and stay with the story.
Figurative language is one of the tools that makes writing more vivid and engaging. It invites the reader to picture the scene: to smell the roses, feel the warmth of sunlight, or sense whether a moment is happy or sad. Writers often talk about “show, don’t tell.” Similes, metaphors, personification, and onomatopoeia give students concrete ways to do that.
Ms. Fahlgren led the class through a lesson in those devices and then asked students to put them to work in their own stories. The results already sound like writers who are paying attention to the pictures in a reader’s mind.
"Figurative language is one of the tools a writer can use to add details and help the reader visualize their experience," said Ms. Fahlgren.
In her writing, Aathmika M. described a train in Europe this way:
Those lines do more than decorate a sentence. They turn a memory into something a classmate—or a parent—can step into. That is the heart of thoughtful communication: choosing words that carry both information and feeling.
I looked up and there it was, a castle on wheels.
(A metaphor comparing the train to a castle.)
She also gave the weather a life of its own:
It was a windy day and the trees looked like they were dancing to the rhythm of the wind.
(Personification.)
Sohani P. used a simile to capture a proud walk down a staircase:
Everyone clapped for us while we were walking down the steps that were shining like glass.
Emma D. used onomatopoeia to describe a hair-raising experience:
Zoom zoom zoom, zip zip zip! I zipline through the mountains from one to another.
Those lines do more than decorate a sentence. They turn a memory into something a classmate—or a parent—can step into. That is the heart of thoughtful communication: choosing words that carry both information and feeling.
As the students keep revising, they are learning a lesson that will follow them well beyond fourth grade. A personal story becomes a better read not because more happens in it, but because the writer learns how to help someone else live it with them.
Jacksonville Country Day School
Located in Jacksonville, FL, Jacksonville Country Day School is a private school for Pre-K 3 through 5th grade. JCDS prepares students for a healthy and productive lifetime of intellectual exploration, character development, and social responsibility.
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