Literary Devices

1. Literary Devices EQ: What are literary devices, including figurative language, and how can they be used to understand and interpret what a writer is saying?

2. Literary Devices & Figurative Language • Devices used to help a writer tell a story or make a point • Many times involves a comparison • Many are not meant to be taken literally…as the words say, but are to be taken figuratively…a hidden meaning • Make writing more interesting & descriptive

3. Metaphors • Comparing two unlike things without using like or as • The wind was a thousand souls dying. 1. What is being compared? 2. What does the comparison show or tell you?

4. Similes • Comparing two unlike things using like, as, than, or resembles • Feeling like two birds in the gray sky… 1. What two things are being compared? 2. What does the comparison show or tell you?

5. Personification • Giving a nonhuman or inanimate thing a human, lifelike quality • The high tower was cold…the Fog Horn was calling and calling through the mist. 1. What is the inanimate object? 2. What is it doing that is human like?

6. Hyperbole • Extreme exaggeration, obviously not true • I was so embarrassed I died. 1. What is the exaggeration? • What does it tell you about the person?

7. Imagery • Language that appeals to the 5 senses • Creates picture in your mind • The sun that brief December day, rose cheerless over hills of gray. • What sense is being used? • What image does it create?

8. Irony • Verbal: say 1 thing & mean another - sarcasm • Situational: a situation turns out different than expected • Dramatic: the reader knows something a character doesn’t • I just LOVE being caught in the rain without an umbrella. • Field day in the desert where it never rains that gets cancelled because of rain. • A bad guy hiding in the bathroom of a girls house and she doesn’t know; you yell at the TV screen to warn her.

9. Symbolism • A person, place, or thing that has meaning itself but also represents something else • skull & crossbones • heart • What does it mean by itself? • What could it represent? In a story…what events support that representation?

10. Dialect • Way of speaking specific to a certain area or group of people • Y’all come back ya’ hear. • bless her bones • going down to the crick

11. Idiom • Until the cows come home • S o hungry I could eat a horse • Cup of Joe • Cultural expression meant only to be taken figuratively

12. Your Turn… Think about what device the example might be and how you know Pair and discuss the example and how you know Share with the class what it is and how you know

13. His ships swooped down on the white city like wolves on a sheep pen. • The road was a ribbon of moonlight. • When I work out I kill two birds with one stone, get in some exercise and release some stress. Analyze each of the sentences, explaining what the literary device is, how you know, and what it means.

14. The new day’s light stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintop. • My dad had a heart-attack when he saw my phone bill. • The waves crashed along the shore rhythmically, while the heat of the sun on my face warmed me from the chill of the breeze. Analyze each of the sentences, explaining what the literary device is, how you know, and what it means.

15. Zach and Anna are late again, what a shocker. • Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly. He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye. He waited his whole life to take that flight. And as the plane crashed down he thought, "Well, isn't this nice." Analyze each of the sentences, explaining what the literary device is, how you know, and what it means.

16. (why the waves have whitecaps excerpt) • When the couple got married they put rings on each other, vowing to never take them off. Analyze each of the sentences, explaining what the literary device is, how you know, and what it means.