By the time they enter high school, most students know that a simile is a literary device used to show a similarity between two dissimilar things, and that the words "like" or "as" link the dissimilar things, as in "busy as a bee," "like a fish out of water," "as big as a house," and "fits like a glove." They know, too, that similes differ from metaphors in that metaphors dispense with "like" or "as" and get right to the point: "He's a rat." "Life is but a walking shadow." (Not all similes employ "as" or "like," as here: "On a normal day, Jennifer Capriati tends to rush through games with the haste of a short-order cook, moving from point to point without a pause.")
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Ed researcher Robert J. Marzano suggests that we can help close the achievement gap by explicitly teaching subject-specific academic vocabulary to those students who are lacking the background knowledge to succeed in school. We urge you to check out this handy-dandy chart that demonstrates how the Visual Thesaurus can help you implement Marzano's six steps of vocabulary instruction.
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