Description

Discover the power of personification in the picture book A Leaf Called Greaf by Kelly Canby

This lesson plan is designed to teach students about personification using the descriptive and thought-provoking picture book A Leaf Called Greaf by Kelly Canby.

Focusing on the book’s use of figurative language, this lesson unpacks how personification is used to describe abstract nouns, particularly the feeling of grief. The metaphors and personification in this book are skillfully woven to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of grief. The gentle storyline lends itself to discussion about strong emotions and how we can effectively portray them in stories.

Aligned with the Australian Curriculum: English Version 9 outcomes for Year 1 to Year 6, this lesson provides differentiated strategies that can be used in junior and senior years. It addresses teaching figurative language across year levels, with guidance for adapting the content to suit your classroom needs.

The comprehensive lesson plan includes:

Step-by-step teacher instructions for an intentional and scaffolded learning sequence
Modelling prompts to support classroom discussion and guided analysis
A shared group experience to build collective understanding
Independent practice tasks to consolidate learning
A reflective activity to encourage synthesis
2 x supporting resources to scaffold the learning process

Grounded in the gradual release of responsibility model and the deconstructing–reconstructing teaching and learning cycle, this lesson is ideal for building students’ visual literacy, grammar knowledge, and appreciation for multimodal texts.