How do you identify a figurative device and, more importantly, explain the effect it creates rather than just naming it?
Figurative language and literary devices: identifying metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, symbolism, and hyperbole, and analyzing the effect each device creates, the move from naming a device to explaining what it does in a STAAR literary text.
How to analyze figurative language on STAAR English I: identifying metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, symbolism, and hyperbole, and explaining the effect each creates rather than just naming it. STAAR tests devices with multiple choice, hot text, and short constructed response items.
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What this skill is asking
Figurative language is language that means more than its literal sense, and analyzing it is one of the most frequent STAAR English I literary tasks, in reading literary and poetry passages alike. Questions ask you to identify a device (multiple choice or hot text) and, crucially, to explain its effect (short constructed response and the higher-value multiple-choice options). The skill students under-perform on is not naming the device, which is often easy, but saying what it does: the effect it creates and the meaning it builds. This page covers the core devices (metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, symbolism, and hyperbole) and, for each, the move from naming to explaining. The transferable skill is treating every figure as a choice that creates a specific effect.
The core devices
Know the devices precisely, because some questions hinge on a single distinction.
The simile-versus-metaphor distinction is the most commonly tested: both compare, but a simile uses "like" or "as" and a metaphor does not. When a question offers both, check for the comparison word. Personification is also easy to confuse with metaphor; the test is whether the device gives human qualities to something non-human.
From naming to explaining the effect
Naming the device earns little; explaining its effect earns the marks.
To find the effect, ask what the comparison reveals about the subject. "The silence sat between them like a third person" does not just compare; it makes the silence feel like a presence, an awkward intruder, which tells you how tense the characters are. The effect is the bridge from the device to the meaning.
Analyzing a device under time pressure
Try this
Q1. What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor? [Recall]
- Cue. A simile compares using "like" or "as" ("brave as a lion"); a metaphor compares directly, stating one thing is another ("her words were daggers"), with no comparison word.
Q2. A writer describes grief as "a stone in my chest I carry everywhere." Name the device and explain its effect. [Short explanation]
- Cue. Metaphor: grief is compared to a stone. The effect is to make grief feel heavy, physical, and constant, something the speaker bears at all times, conveying how burdensome and inescapable the feeling is.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of TEA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
STAAR English I (literary, style)1 marksA passage describes a city at dawn: 'the streets yawned and stretched, shaking off the night.' This is an example of which device, and what is its effect? (1) Simile; it compares the city to a person using 'like.' (2) Personification; it gives the city human actions, making it feel alive and waking. (3) Hyperbole; it exaggerates the city's size. (4) Symbolism; the streets stand for freedom.Show worked answer →
Answer: (2). Giving the streets human actions (yawning, stretching, shaking off sleep) is personification. Its effect is to make the waking city feel alive, as though the place itself is rising with its people.
Why not the others: (1) there is no "like" or "as," so it is not a simile; (3) nothing is exaggerated for emphasis; (4) no clear symbol is set up. STAAR device questions reward naming the device and stating its effect, not just labelling it.
STAAR English I (literary, SCR style)2 marksShort constructed response. Identify one example of figurative language in the passage and explain the effect it has, supporting your answer with evidence from the text. (Scored on the 2-point SCR rubric.)Show worked answer →
A 2-point response names a device, quotes it, and states its effect, for example: "The writer uses a simile when she says the silence 'sat between them like a third person at the table.' The comparison makes the silence feel heavy and present, showing how the tension has become something the characters cannot ignore."
Markers give 2 points for an accurate device plus its effect, supported by a quotation, 1 point for a device with no effect or no quotation, and 0 for neither. Naming the device alone ("she uses a simile") caps the score, because the effect is what the task rewards.
Related dot points
- Reading poetry on STAAR: paraphrasing a poem to grasp its literal sense, identifying poetic structure (stanza, line break, rhyme, repetition) and figurative language, and analyzing how a poem's form and sound contribute to its meaning and tone.
How to read poetry on STAAR English I: paraphrasing to grasp the literal sense, identifying structure (stanza, line break, rhyme, repetition) and figurative language, and tying form and sound to meaning and tone. STAAR tests poetry with multiple choice, hot text, and inline-choice items.
- Analyzing theme in literary texts: stating a theme as a complete sentence about life or human nature (not a topic word), distinguishing theme from subject and from moral, and tracing how a writer develops a theme through plot, character, and detail across a STAAR literary passage.
How to analyze theme on a STAAR English I literary passage: stating theme as a full sentence about life rather than a one-word topic, telling theme apart from subject and moral, and tracing how plot, character, and detail develop the theme. Theme questions appear in multiple choice, hot text, and short constructed response form.
- Character and characterization: distinguishing direct from indirect characterization, inferring traits and motivations from what a character says, does, and how others react, and tracking how and why a character changes across a STAAR literary passage.
How to analyze character on a STAAR English I literary passage: telling direct from indirect characterization, inferring traits and motivations from speech, action, and others' reactions, and tracking character change. STAAR tests character with multiple choice, hot text, and short constructed response items.
- Author's purpose and craft: determining an author's purpose (to inform, persuade, or entertain) and point of view, and analyzing the craft choices, text structure, word choice, tone, and text features, that an author uses to achieve that purpose in a STAAR informational text.
How to analyze author's purpose and craft on STAAR English I: determining purpose (inform, persuade, entertain) and point of view, and analyzing the craft choices (structure, word choice, tone, text features) used to achieve it. STAAR tests this with multiple choice, hot text, and short constructed responses.
- Text evidence and inference: drawing inferences that an informational text supports, anchoring each inference to its textual trigger, selecting the evidence that best supports a given conclusion, and rejecting the over-reaching and unsupported inferences that STAAR distractors are built from.
How to make inferences and select evidence on STAAR English I informational passages: drawing conclusions the text supports, anchoring each to its trigger, choosing the evidence that proves a conclusion, and rejecting over-reach. STAAR tests this with multiple choice, multiselect, hot text, and multipart items.