Understanding Literary Devices: A Professional Development Guide for Educators
This guide offers educators a comprehensive overview of various literary devices in line with the Common Core State Standards for ELA. Covering significant examples such as polysyndeton, epistrophe, euphony, and personification, the program provides detailed explanations and contextual usage. Teachers will learn how to identify these devices in literature, enhancing their ability to instruct students effectively. The guide also emphasizes the importance of recognizing tone, voice, and mood in literary works, supporting educators in fostering a deeper understanding of literature in their classrooms.
Understanding Literary Devices: A Professional Development Guide for Educators
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Presentation Transcript
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program www.rpdp.net Language Terms SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#1 Identify the device being used: “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” (The Wizard of Oz) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#1 Answer • Polysyndeton • The device of repeating conjunctions in close succession. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#2 Identify the device being used: “Of the people, by the people, for the people” (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #2 • Epistrophe • The repetition of a word or group of words at the end of successive phrases, clauses, verses, or sentences SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#3 Identify the term/device: A pleasing arrangement of sounds SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #3 • Euphony SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#4 Identify the device being used: “Heard melodies are sweet.” (John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #4 • Synaesthesia • The use of one kind of sensory experience to describe another SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#5 Identify the device being used: “All the other lads there were / Were Itching to have a bash.” (Philip Larkin, “Send No Money”) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #5 • Colloquialism • An informal or slang expression, especially in the context of formal writing SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#6 Identify the term/device: The atmosphere of a work of literature; the emotion created by the work SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #6 Mood SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#7 Identify the device being used: Saying “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide” SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #7 • Euphemism • The use of less offensive language to express unpleasant or vulgar ideas, events, or actions SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#8 Identify the term/device: The person (sometimes a character) who tells a story; the voice assumed by the writer. Not necessarily the author (but it can be). SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #8 Narrator SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#9 • The following are examples: • Richard Wright’s Black Boy • Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life • Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #9 • Autobiography • The narrative of a person’s life, written by that person. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#10 Identify the device being used: The moon smiled down at us as we sat by the river. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #10 • Personification • The use of human characteristics to describe animals, objects, or ideas. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#11 Identify the term/device: The character an author assumes in a written work. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #11 Persona SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#12 Identify the term/device: An author’s individual way of using language to reflect his or her own personality and attitudes. An author communicates this through tone, diction, and sentence structure. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #12 Voice SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#13 Identify the term/device: The works of Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Bronte and other great writers. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #13 Canon • An evolving group of literary works considered essential to a culture’s literary tradition. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#14 • The following are examples: • Richard the Lionheart • Shoeless Joe Jackson • The Brooklyn Bomber SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #14 • Epithet • An adjective or phrase that describes a prominent or distinguishing feature of a person or thing SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#15 Identify the device being used: In Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, the nightmares Lockwood has the night he sleeps in Catherine’s bed prefigure later events in the novel. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #15 • Foreshadowing • An author’s deliberate use of hints or suggestions to give a preview of events or themes that do not develop until later in the narrative. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#16 Identify the device being used: The ship was crewed by fifty hands. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #16 Synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part of an entity is used to refer to the whole (In this case, “hands” alludes to the people—all of the people—manning the ship.) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#17 Identify the term/device: A technique of detachment that draws awareness to the discrepancy between words and their meanings, between expectation and fulfillment, or, most commonly, between what is and what seems to be. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #17 • Irony (Five types = verbal, situational, romantic, dramatic/tragic, and cosmic) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#18 Identify the term/device: Specific facts or examples used to support a claim in a piece of writing. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #18 Evidence SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#19 Identify the device being used: “Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.” (Shakespeare, Sonnet 129) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #19 Parallelism • The use of similar grammatical structures or word order in two or more sentences, clauses, or phrases to suggest a comparison or contrast between them. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#20 Identify the term/device: The art of persuasion, or the art of speaking or writing well. This involves the study of how words influence audiences. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #20 Rhetoric SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#21 Identify the term/device: The main idea, or principal claim, that is supported in a work of nonfiction. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #21 Thesis statement SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#22 Identify the term/device: The author’s attitude toward the subject or characters of a story or poem, or toward the reader. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #22 tone SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#23 Identify the device being used: Asking the wealthy nations of the world to feed the impoverished nations is like asking people on a full lifeboat to take on more passengers. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #23 Analogy • A comparison based on a specific similarity between things that are otherwise unlike, or the inference that if two things are alike in some ways, they will be alike in others. Often analogies draw a comparison between something abstract and something more concrete or easier to visualize. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#24 Identify the device being used: “And all men kill the thing they love.” (Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
Answer #24 Paradox • A statement that seems absurd or even contradictory but that often expresses a deeper truth. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA
#25 Identify the device being used: My teacher is a total psychopath. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA