Dawn C. Sherwood

Highland Springs H.S., VA

Personification

Giving human qualities to nonliving or nonhuman objects

"The ancient car groaned into third gear."

"The cloud scattered rain throughout the city."

"The tropical storm slept for two days."

The nonliving objects in the above sentences (car, cloud, storm) have been given human qualities (groaned, scattered, slept).
Adding meaning to nonliving or nonhuman objects in this manner is called "personification."

 

Come up with a list of verbs to help you personify objects in your writing:

Now try to personify the following objects on your own!  Change the words in parentheses to words that would describe a human's actions (use verbs!!).  You may not use the same word/phrase more than once!

The wave (crashed) ______________________ on the shore.

The space shuttle (took off) ________________________________________.

If you look closely, you can see the grass __________________________.

Illustrate two of the above sentences you created!