7 items to help teachers teach literary devices

1. Teacher writes an amazing story and gives it to the kids, full of literary devices they themselves learnt and that they even invented.

2. Teachers stop underestimating kids and making them bored by talking about metaphors and similes. Metaphors and similes can be taught in fifteen minutes to anyone of any age with a mind. Why do they teach them for ten years?

3. Provide excellent model texts to all kids but the ones who need modified and simplified work. Make them stretch for it. Use high quality stories and don't be afraid to use old ones. Poe. Wilde. Lovecraft. To name a few.

4. Absorb devices by osmosis by excellent reading of mentor texts. Teachers must read high quality literature. If they do not, they are not going to inspire kids to do so. They can and should teach literary devices because they themselves are enthusiastic experts!

5. Look up the meaning of 'device'. The first meaning is a thing that is used. The second meaning is a trick or a ploy. So it is with literary devices: there are many ways writers communicate with readers, some of them very subtle. How is it that Lovecraft, for instance, can create a very creepy atmosphere from quite a realist style?

As for 6 and 7... Ask the students to come up with two more ideas for teaching literary devices.

Do not teach literary devices as dead or difficult things. Play guessing games about them. Have competitions at coming up with the funniest examples. Without creativity our language will die and only the shell will remain. So don't just teach the shell!