Transcript Poetry Unit Mrs. Driscoll’s 8th Grade Language Arts Woodland Middle School

Poetry Unit
Mrs. Driscoll’s
8th Grade Language Arts
Woodland Middle School
Prose VS. Poetry
Prose is any writing
that is not poetry.
Essays, short
stories, novels,
newspaper articles,
and letters are all
written in prose.
Prose is usually
composed in
paragraphs.
Poetry is a kind of
rhythmic,
compressed
language that uses
figures of speech
and imagery
designed to appeal
to our emotions and
imagination.
Figures of Speech
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Idiom
Cliché
Euphemism
Oxymoron
Hyperbole
Pun
Imagery
Imagery is language that appeals to the
senses.
Most images are visual
Images can also appeal to the senses
of hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
Often images can appeal to several
senses at once.
Poetic Structure
Poetry is usually arranged in lines.
A group of consecutive lines in a poem
that form a single unit is a stanza.
It often has a regular pattern of rhythm
and may have a regular rhyme scheme
(exception = free verse).
Stanzas in Poetry
A stanza in a poem is something like a
paragraph in prose: It often expresses
a unit of thought.
A stanza may consist of any number of
lines; it may even consist of a single
line.
In some poems, each stanza has the
same rhyme scheme.
Speaker in Poetry
Speaker : Poetry :: Narrator : Prose
The speaker in poetry is the voice talking to us in a
poem.
The speaker is sometimes, but not always, the poet.
It is best to think of the voice in the poem as
belonging to a character the poet has created.
The character may be a child, a woman, a man, an
animal, or even an object.
Poetic Sound Devices
Rhythm
Rhyme
Refrain
Onomatopoeia
Alliteration
Assonance
Rhythm in Poetry
Rhythm is a musical quality produced by the
repetition of stressed and unstressed
syllables or by the repetition of certain other
sound patterns.
A pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables in poetry is called meter.
Scanning is marking the meter of a poem with
stressed and unstressed syllables.
Rhyme in Poetry
Rhyme is the repetition of accented vowel sounds
and all sounds following them in words that are close
together in a poem.
Purposes=building rhythm, lending a songlike quality,
emphasizing ideas, organizing poems, providing
humor or pleasure for the reader, and aiding memory.
Types of rhymes: end, internal, approximate (near or
slant), and eye (visual).
Types of Rhymes
End rhymes: rhymes at the end of lines.
Internal rhymes: rhymes within lines.
Approximate/near/slant rhymes: rhymes
involving sounds that are similar but not
exactly the same (leave/live).
Eye/visual rhymes: “rhymes” involving words
that are spelled similarly but pronounced
differently (tough/cough as opposed to
tough/rough).
Rhyme Scheme in Poetry
Rhyme scheme = the pattern of end
rhymes in a poem.
To indicate the rhyme scheme of a
poem, use a letter of the alphabet for
each end rhyme.
“A Time to Talk” pg 17 abcadbceed
Refrain in Poetry
A repeated sound, word,
phrase, line, or group of
lines.
Usually associated with
songs and poems but are
also used in speeches and
other forms of literature.
Purposes: build rhythm,
provide emphasis, create
suspense, or help hold a
work together.
From “America” by Neil Diamond
Everywhere around the world
They're coming to America
Every time that flag's unfurled
They're coming to America
Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America
Onomatopoeia
The use of words
whose sounds imitate
or suggest their
meaning
Examples: buzz, rustle,
boom, ticktock, tweet,
and bark
Lines to right =
suggestion of sound of
sleigh bells
From “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe
Hear the sledges with the bellsSilver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody
foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the Heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight.
Alliteration
The repetition of
consonant sounds in
words that are close
together.
Usually at the beginning
of words, but also occur
within or at end of
words
Mostly in poetry but can
be in prose
From “The Walrus and the
Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and brightAnd this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
Assonance
The repetition of vowel
sounds in words that
By Buson
are close together.
Usually at the beginning
of words, but also occur Sun low in the west…
moon floating up in the east
within or at end of
flowers in shadows
words
Mostly in poetry but can
be in prose