Explanations for Expressions

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Tell the students that an idiom is a phrase that is not literal and the meaning is heavily dependent on how it is used.
• Write a sentence of choice (or the following sample sentences) on the board: “Mr. Long’s garden is thriving with an exquisite number of flowers. He definitely has a green thumb!”
• Invite the students to turn to their neighbors and talk about which part they think is not literal.
• After the students have had a moment to discuss their thinking, underline the words “green thumb.” Think aloud, explaining how we can visualize an actual green thumb, but this is not the meaning of the phrase in this context.
• Tell the students that you are going to look for other words in the sentences that help us understand the context of the idiom. Underline the following words in a different color: garden, thriving, exquisite, flowers.
• Explain to the students that sometimes we can find exaggerations called hyperboles. Like idioms, these words or phrases do not have literal meanings.
• Repeat the process of underlining the hyperbole and context clues in the following sentence (or sentence of choice): “School supplies can be so expensive. Every year it costs a million dollars!”

Guided Practice

• Tell the students that they will be working together as a group on a shared document that contains hyperbole and idioms.
• Divide students into groups and share the document with the students.
• After sharing the document with the students, ask the students to color code the figurative language and clue words. Then, invite the students to type their own interpretation of the figurative language.

Independent working time

• Ask the students to complete the worksheet Expressions Explained.