Transcript Reading Targets - Everett School District

Poetic Elements
Poetry Unit
Learning Targets for Literature
Key Ideas and Details
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its
development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is
shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of
the text.
Craft and Structure
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text,
including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative
impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the
language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or
informal tone).
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different
artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each
treatment
Alliteration
• The repetition of sounds at the beginning of words
• Example: “Babbling, bumbling, baboons”
Assonance
• Repeating internal vowel sounds in nearby words that do not
end the same.
• Example: “All the night tide”
Connotation
• Associations and implications that go beyond the literal
meaning of a word and the associations that people make
with it.
• Example: The word “drugs” has a negative connotation,
though some drugs can be useful to improve health.
Consonance
• A common type of near rhyme that consists of identical
consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds.
• Example: My home is the same wherever I roam.
Denotation
• The dictionary meaning of a word. A word’s literal meaning.
• Example: Denotation – the dictionary definition of a word.
Diction
• A writer’s choice of words, phrases, and figurative language,
which combine to help create meaning.
• Poetic diction: The way poets sometimes employ an elevated
diction that deviates significantly from common speech and
writing of their time.
Extended Metaphor
• A comparison of two unlike things without comparing words
that continues throughout several lines of a work.
Figurative Language
• Ways of using language that deviate from the literal,
denotative meanings of words in order to suggest additional
meanings or effects. Saying one thing in terms of something
else.
• Examples: Metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole
Hyperbole
• A boldly exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without
intending to be literally true.
• Example: He ate everything in the house.
Imagery
• A word, phrase, or figure of speech that addresses the senses,
suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes,
feelings or actions.
• Example: The green, lush, rolling hills smelled of lavender on
the spring morning.
Metaphor
• A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two
unlike things, without using words such as ‘like’ or ‘as’.
• Example: “Juliet is the sun.”
Meter
• A rhythmic pattern of stresses occurs in a poem. These are
determined by type and number of feet in a line of verse.
• Types: Dimeter, Trimeter, Tetrameter, Pentameter, Hexameter,
Heptameter, Octameter
Onomatopoeia
• A word that resembles the sound it denotes.
• Examples: Buzz, clang, click
Personification
• A form of metaphor in which human characteristics are
attributed to nonhuman things.
• Example: The dancing trees swayed.
Refrain
• A phrase, line, or stanza repeated throughout a work.
• Example: In music, this is the chorus
Repetition
• The use of words or phrases that occur more than once in a
work.
• Example: He is just perfect, perfect, perfect!
Rhyme
• The repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in
different words, most often at the ends of lines.
• Example: The cat wore a fancy hat.
Rhythm
• A term used to refer to the recurrence of stressed and
unstressed sounds in poetry.
• Types: Iamb, trochee, spondee, dactyl, anapest
Simile
• A common figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison
between two unlike things using words such as ‘like’ or ‘as’
• Example: “Her hair fell like a cascade of brown waters.”
Stanza
• A group of usually four or more lines that mark specific
intervals in a poem.
• Example: Poetry paragraphs
Symbol
• A person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of
additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than
the literal meaning.
• Example: The flag represents freedom.
Tone
• The author’s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people,
places, and events in a work.
Theme
• The central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work.
• Topic + Vivid Verb + Tone = Theme statement
Volta
• A turn in thought (typically in a sonnet) often marked by the
words “but” “yet” or “and yet.”