One Volunteer’s Experience
Um, what’s a simile again?
The day before my volunteer assignment with Behind the Book, I reviewed our task: We’d be helping fourth graders at P.S. 197 in East Harlem write some lines of poetry, using metaphors, repetition and, er, similes.
Though I’d been a journalist and working writer for 20 years, my memory of the difference between a simile and a metaphor was a little hazy.
My friend Wiki helped me. A simile uses the words “like” or “as” to draw a comparison.
Examples:“They fought like cats and dogs.”“The dress fits like a glove.”And a famous simile from poet Robert Burns: “O My Luve’s like a red, red rose.”
Got it!
Once the seven other volunteers and I got to the classroom, Behind the Book’s Director of Programs, Denise Cotton, reminded the students of the assignment: to use metaphors and similes to express their identities.
“I am sweet like sugar,” wrote Jayden, one of four boys I was helping at my table. “And sometimes, I’m sour like Sour Patch kids.”
Elon, his classmate, offered this beauty: “I am happy and joyful like a sun.”
This gem from Chaz: “I am intelligent like Albert Einstein.”
And Mekhai closed it out with this tasty bit: “I am happy like a sugar waffle.”
Once we had wrapped the assignment, the four boys and I talked about what we were reading in our free time.
Chaz loves the Harry Potter books. Mekhai’s choice: The Bad Guys. But Jayden really got his friends chatting when he said his favorite was the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series of 13 books.
“I love The Meltdown!”
“Dog Days!”
“What about The Getaway, when they went on that awful vacation?”
This warmed my heart, as I told the boys that coincidentally, my son Lucas and I had been reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books for months, too.
I said that at first, I wasn’t sure I liked the series, because the main character, middle-school student Gregory, is kinda self-centered. He doesn’t always make the right choices.
But the boys at my table — all on the verge of middle school themselves — seemed to connect to the character. Said Jayden, “Middle school is a hard time.”
I could have listened to their wisdom all day. But it was time to go. We’d continue our simile discussion another time.
I left happy like a proud teacher.
by Bradley Jacobs Sigesmund
*Students’ names are pseudonyms to protect their privacy.