I have been having my students write a lot of analogies lately. One per unit. At first I thought it was an easy endeavor- that since they have been well-versed in metaphor and simile, that writing comparisons in science would be easy. But, I have discovered that a lot of students struggle with them. Especially if you give them a theme (football, school, park).
I walked around my classroom today just listening- they are writing analogies of the body systems- most chose a sport as their theme but many chose a classroom, so they could look around and get context clues- or their bedroom for virtual students. What I thought would take ten minutes took twenty. They struggled.
I asked them why they were struggling, especially when they have already learned all the body systems, and were tested on each system. These were their responses:
"Comparing things, that to me are abstract- like body systems is difficult."
"Finding a theme is hard."
"You think you know the information, but then having to write an analogy, shows you you don't know it as well as you thought you did."
"Analogies are hard sometimes cause you have to explain your reasoning."
I replied to all of these students-
"Yes. Analogies are a great way to see what you know. To make sure you can see the purpose and relevance of things."
I plan on using analogies in the spring semester too. I have been giving sentence stems to my Academic and ESL students and this helps them a lot. But, every student needs to keep writing them- because it is a different way of thinking.
As one students shared-
"Writing analogies helps me see the big picture, all the threads connecting the body systems together."
and to that I responded
"The connections are the sinew holding science together. Everything is connected, all we have to do is look for the threads."
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