Years 7–8 · English · Reference module

Lesson 7: Figurative Language & The Poet’s Toolkit

Analyse how one image or sound pattern shapes meaning, then write a short poem in which every device has a job.

Ngā Whāinga Akoranga — Learning intentions

We are learning to: We are learning to identify a figurative or sound feature and explain the meaning it creates.

Success evidence: I can cite a feature in the mentor poem, explain its effect, and craft eight lines using three deliberate devices. For the supplied whakataukī, I can record source and context before explaining how that context changes my reading.

Te Whakatakotoranga | Run of show

  1. Notice a comparison 6 min
  2. Model image and effect 10 min
  3. Read context before naming effect 14 min
  4. Draft a short poem 20 min
  5. Replace one cliché 7 min
  6. Explain the chosen image 3 min

Total: 60 minutes.

Tirohanga whānui | What this module is doing

This module fails when learners hunt devices like hidden objects or force four metaphors into every line. Naming a feature matters only when the writer or reader can explain its effect.

You’ll need

  • Open Workshop 7 and display the original goalpost poem.
  • Keep this lesson’s Te Papa source card available on screen or in print. Learners do not need to search for a cultural text.
  • Prepare device cards: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, hyperbole.
  • Keep the writing task on original practice writing rather than imitating waiata, karakia, haka, whakataukī, or pūrākau.
  • Workshop 7 learner page and portfolio evidence rubric.

Do Now — Feature plus effect 6 min

Run it

  1. Underline one comparison and one sound choice in the poem.
  2. Complete: “The word ___ makes the place seem ___ because ___.”

Model — Keep, change, delete 10 min

Run it

  1. Annotate the goalpost metaphor and test a weaker replacement.
  2. Add one decorative simile, show how it competes, and delete it.
  3. Model distinguishing personification from a literal human action.

Guided practice — Context before craft 14 min

Published source card

Whakataukī: Matariki hunga nui. Te Papa translates this as “Matariki, the gatherer of people” and explains it in the context of people gathering during Matariki.

Source: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa — Matariki whakataukī. Use the published context supplied by the source. Do not infer an iwi-specific meaning or ask learners to supply one.

Run it

  1. Before naming any literary device, write three headings: Source → Context → Effect. Record who published the whakataukī and the Matariki context the source provides.
  2. Using Te Papa’s supplied translation, write one reading based on the words alone and one reading after adding the published Matariki context. Underline what changed.
  3. Explain why reducing the whakataukī to a free-floating “metaphor” would lose knowledge carried by its context. This is analysis, not imitation: do not rewrite or adapt the whakataukī.
  4. Transfer the method back to the original goalpost poem: state its supplied context before naming the strongest image and its effect.

Independent draft — Ordinary place, exact images 20 min

Run it

  1. Choose the supplied field, bus shelter, dairy queue, or empty hall.
  2. Write eight lines using three devices, including one sound choice.
  3. Margin-note the intended effect of the strongest feature.

Revision — Device audit 7 min

Run it

  1. Circle every figurative feature. Delete or simplify one that does not sharpen meaning.
  2. Check that images are original rather than borrowed cultural expressions. If a source’s meaning depends on cultural context, keep it in the analysis rather than lifting it into the draft, and explain that boundary in one sentence.

Exit — One feature earns its place 3 min

Run it

  1. Quote one line and explain why its feature is necessary.

Ngā huarahi ako | Differentiation

Tautoko / Support

  • Provide an effect bank—tension, calm, speed, isolation, humour—rather than only device definitions.
  • Allow learners to compose orally and record lines before transcribing.

Toitoi / Extension

Sustain one controlling image across four lines without mixing incompatible comparisons.

Evidence choices

A poem may be typed, handwritten, dictated, or recorded, with an identified image and explanation submitted separately if useful. Assess the language choice and its effect, not oral performance.

Source and cultural-authority boundary

This lesson deliberately includes one published whakataukī analysis so provenance and context change the reading method before a device is named. That does not turn waiata, karakia, haka, whakataukī, pūrākau, or whakapapa into a free technique bank. Study a named published work only with its source and context; do not ask learners to imitate or invent culturally held forms in this general workshop.

A locally held text may replace the Te Papa example only when mana whenua or an appropriate local te reo Māori lead has selected or approved its classroom use and supplied the context that learners need.

Hononga marautanga | Curriculum

Use language features that support analysis of how meaning is shaped, including those identified in the teaching sequence.

Te Mātaiaho · English · Phase 3 · Text Studies · Practices

Learners analyse the meaning made by features in an original mentor poem, then adapt selected techniques and justify one effect.

Honest limit: there is no active Phase 3 English statement for writing production. Curriculum evidence in this lesson is the analysis of a supplied poem's features and the learner's justified adaptation of one technique, without Phase 4 wording.

Resources and checking