Personification is a figure of speech that gives human characteristics to objects or to nonhuman living things. We all know that storms aren’t really angry, and that trees aren’t proud—these things don’t have human feelings or emotions. But we can’t help seeing them as human. We personify animals in particular because they have brains and do many familiar things that humans do—eat, make sounds, raise their young, fight, and play.

In this lesson, you will learn about the brown-headed cowbird, which gets other birds to raise its young by invading their nests. You will also see how this story uses human motives and emotions to tell the cowbird’s story.

Goals
Here are the big ideas you will learn about in this lesson:

• Personification in literature gives human characteristics—including behaviors, emotions, and motives—to nonhuman beings and things.
• Personification helps people create an emotional connection with nonhuman beings and things.

Strategies
You will be using many reading and writing strategies to complete this lesson. The key strategies that you will focus on are:

• Making inferences
• Determining important information
• Comparing and contrasting ideas
• Constructing summaries

• personification
• personify
• species

Cowbirds are a species of bird with an unusual behavior: instead of making their own nests, they lay an egg in another bird’s nest so that the other bird raises the cowbird chick. Cowbirds usually choose the nests of warblers, a type of songbird. (“Warble” is an old-fashioned word for “sing.")

In this video, you will see how this cowbird behavior is driving some species of songbirds to extinction—destroying the population of that species until there is none left. As you watch, write down the words and images that personify cowbirds—give them human characteristics. For example, the cowbirds are said to ditch their eggs in other birds' nests.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

List the words or images used in this video to personify the cowbirds.

In this video, you will learn about a problem discovered by Jeff Hoover, a scientist who was studying warblers. To help the warbler chicks survive, Hoover removed cowbird eggs from warbler nests. However, he later discovered that the warbler eggs in these nests had been destroyed, and it seemed that the cowbirds might be responsible. As you watch, think about how the cowbirds are personified as villains—evil characters—at the end of the video.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

The video asks if the cowbirds' behavior might be “revenge.” Revenge is punishing someone who has harmed you, whether they meant to or not. Do you think this personification of the cowbird is appropriate? Why or why not?

In the videos you’ve seen, only the cowbirds are personified. The warblers are presented in a way that makes you care about them, but they are not described using human motives and emotions. The people who made the video chose to personify the cowbirds for a reason: What could it be?

One reason might be that personification can make the information easier to understand; it's clear that the cowbirds are a problem that needs to be solved. Another reason might be that the story becomes more interesting when the cowbirds are presented as evil—then we may care more about what happens to the songbirds.

In this video, you will see Jeff Hoover's experiment, in which he makes warbler nest boxes that are too small for cowbirds. This keeps cowbirds from getting into the nest boxes and destroying warbler eggs. As you watch, notice how personification affects how you feel about the results of the experiment.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

What was the result of Hoover's experiment? How does the video make you feel about the cowbirds, which are described as ransacking—destroying—the warbler nests as a form of retaliation—revenge?

The videos you have watched showed how cowbirds are threatening the warblers' survival, and what scientists are doing to stop them.

Now, show what you have learned so far about the role personification plays in this story by answering these three questions. Be sure to save all your answers before you go to the next screen.

In this lesson, you have learned how the videos personify the cowbirds as villains, and how that affects your view of them. Now you will read more about how personification works in fiction and nonfiction.

Click "View" on the left to read the passage.

How does personifying the cowbirds make the story more interesting?

You will now check your understanding of the vocabulary words for this lesson by placing them in sentences. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

Before moving to the next screen, choose two words from the vocabulary list and write a new sentence for each word.

Vocabulary words: behavior, characteristics, motive, personification, personify, species

As the videos and the readings have shown, there is a difference between describing animals objectively and using personification to describe them. In this activity, you will compare these opposing ways of describing animals.

Click "View" on the left to begin the activity. Your teacher will review the answers with you.

Then, before moving on to the final assignment, you may want to watch this lesson's videos again or reread the passage.

The Trouble with Cowbirds

Video: 1m 04s

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Battling the Cowbirds

Video: 1m 31s

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Saving the Warblers

Video: 3m 27s

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Personification in Fiction and Nonfiction

Document

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In this lesson, you have learned about the uses of personification in nonfiction. You will now write an essay that demonstrates what you have learned and how you responded to personification in the story of the cowbirds.

Begin by reviewing your notes. Click "review my work" above and view or print out the screen that pops up.

Final Assignment Instructions

• Download  Personification: Cowbirds—Final Assignment (PDF).
• Choose one of the topics in the PDF and write an essay.
• Organize your response so that it includes at least three supporting details that you have learned from the reading passage, video(s), and other materials in this lesson.
• Use at least three vocabulary words (or a form of the words) as part of your supporting details. For example, for the word jump, you could use jumps, jumped, or jumping.