FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Authors use figurative language to create a picture in the readers' minds. Most of the time, the author is comparing what is really happening with something people are familiar with, allowing the reader to make a connection with what is happening in the novel. Figurative language also allows the author to express in more a powerful way what is occurring in the novel.
Directions: Read the examples of figurative language from Speak listed below. Label each example as a simile, metaphor, or personification.
1.	Words climb up my throat.
2.	I dive into the stream of fourth-period lunch students and swim down the hall to the cafeteria.
3.	I have been dropped like a hot Pop Tart on a cold kitchen floor.
4. We are all dressed in down jackets and vests, so we collide and roll like bumper cars at the state fair.
5. There is a beast in my gut; I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs.
6. Her skin is a flat gray color, like underwear washed so many times it's about to fall apart.
7. All the anger whistles out of me like I'm a popped balloon.
8. Lights wink on, the fountains jump, music plays behind the giant ferns, and the mall is open.
9. The card is still there, a white patch of hope with my name on it. 
10. I chomp my sandwich, and it barfs mustard on my shirt.
11. Her voice sounds like a cold engine that won't turn over.
12. I am a deer frozen in the headlights or a tractor trailer.