Figurative LanguageBy Sara Johnson

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Subject: Language Arts

Grade Level: 8th grade

Educational Purpose: To teach students the different types of figurative language used in literature.

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What is Figurative Language?

• The writer or speaker describes something through the use of unusual comparisons, for effect, interest, and to make things clearer.

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Alliteration• The repetition of

a consonant sound at the beginning of words.

• Used to place emphasis on words.

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Ex:Touch each object you want to

touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail.

--Helen Keller, “The Seeing Little”

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Ex:Touch each object you want to

touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail.

--Helen Keller, “The Seeing Little”

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Now you try!

There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t

learned nothing.

--Lorraine Hansbury, A Raisin in the Sun

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Now you try!

There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t

learned nothing.

--Lorraine Hansbury, A Raisin in the Sun

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Assonance• The repetition of a vowel

sound within words.

• Used to reinforce meanings of words and create moods.

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Ex:Poetry is old, ancient, goes

back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how

and why the first poems came.

-- Carl Sandburg, Early Moon

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Ex:Poetry is old, ancient, goes

back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how

and why the first poems came.

-- Carl Sandburg, Early Moon

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Your Turn!

And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.

-- Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee”

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Your Turn!

And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.

-- Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee”

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Onomatopoeia• The use of words to imitate

sounds.

• Examples:• Bang• Pop•Hiss

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Can you think of some examples of

onomatopoeia?