How do I tell personification from a metaphor?

Personification is one kind of metaphor, the kind that hands human qualities to something not human. The wind whispered is both. If the comparison is not to a person, it is a metaphor and not personification.

Is hyperbole the same as lying?

No, because nobody is meant to believe it. I have explained that ten thousand times is understood as exasperation, not as a count. The exaggeration has to be obvious enough that a reader takes it as feeling.

Where do students meet these in real reading?

Personification turns up constantly in poetry and in nature writing. Hyperbole lives in sports commentary, advertising, and anything anyone says about how long a meeting lasted.

7th grade personification and hyperbole

7th grade personification and hyperbole worksheets

Personification gives human actions or feelings to something that is not human. Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration, stated far past what could be true. Seventh graders sort examples of each, using sentences of the kind they meet in novels and in news writing.

Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core L.7.5.a.

Each print is a different sheet with its own answer key. You don't need to sign up.

The kind of phrases you'll sort

Write each phrase from the bank under Personification or Hyperbole.

the last note hung in the air and would not leavethe wind read the pages faster than we couldmy grandmother has saved every jar since the floodthe clock on the gym wall refuses to hurrymy backpack weighs more than the busthe assembly went on until the next school yearthe chalk squealed a complaint across the boardthe forms took up half the county’s paper supply

Columns: Personification and Hyperbole. "the last note hung in the air and would not leave" belongs under personification; "my backpack weighs more than the bus" belongs under hyperbole.

Every print pulls a new set of phrases at this level, so a make-up test or a second sibling gets a different mix.

What's on a 7th grade sheet

7th grade sheets draw from 64 phrases, 14 to a page. None of these phrases are on 6th grade sheets.

Some of the words:

the trail swallowed our footprints by morningthe storm shouldered the hemlocks asidethe scoreboard taunted the visiting benchthe deadline crept closer every eveningthe bus groaned up the last hillthat essay took a thousand years to finishthis sourdough could stop a doorwe waited so long the seasons changed twicethe water in that pond is older than the mountainsthe silence after the buzzer lasted a full year

Sorting. Write each phrase from the bank under Personification or Hyperbole. 14 phrases per page.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

The sort question is who is doing what. If something that cannot act like a person is doing exactly that, it is personification. If the sentence states an impossible amount or degree, it is hyperbole. The pair is worth teaching together because both exaggerate and only one of them makes the object human. The writing lesson is about restraint: hyperbole works once in a paragraph and stops working by the third time, which students discover faster by writing four in a row than by being told.

Watch for: Hyperbole isn't lying; nobody expects the million times to be counted. The stretch is the point. Personification needs a nonhuman thing doing a human action; a happy dog wagging its tail is just a dog.

Common questions about 7th grade personification and hyperbole

How do I tell personification from a metaphor?: Personification is one kind of metaphor, the kind that hands human qualities to something not human. The wind whispered is both. If the comparison is not to a person, it is a metaphor and not personification.
Is hyperbole the same as lying?: No, because nobody is meant to believe it. I have explained that ten thousand times is understood as exasperation, not as a count. The exaggeration has to be obvious enough that a reader takes it as feeling.
Where do students meet these in real reading?: Personification turns up constantly in poetry and in nature writing. Hyperbole lives in sports commentary, advertising, and anything anyone says about how long a meeting lasted.

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Aligned to Common Core L.7.5.a. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

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