Some teaching strategies grow out of the curricula educators inherit or develop through professional reading; others originate in the aromatic humus of their autobiographies. This article presents a proposal that has its origins in the latter. The author recognized that what delights her in prose or poetry is the figurative language a writer uses to evoke a response or support an argument. That realization had obvious teaching relevance: there was every reason to increase developmental students' sensitivity to this aspect of the writer's craft. Several classes spread over five years have convinced the author that developmental writing students benefit from using figurative language to enliven their prose. Teaching developmental students to use simile and metaphor in their essays improves their writing and helps the teacher become a more dialogic reader; moreover, creating original figurative language kindles the analogical imagination that characterizes the academy. (Contains 2 notes.)