IMPORTANT VOCABULARY FOR WITNESS

ALLITERATION  Repetition of initial consonant sounds

CONCRETE POEM  A poem with a shape that suggests its subject. The poet arranged the letters, punctuation, and lines to create an image, or picture, on the page.

COUPLET  Two consecutive lines of verse with end rhymes. Often, a couplet functions as a stanza.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE  Writing or speech that is not meant to be taken literally. The many types of figurative language are also known as figures of speech. These include similes, metaphors, and personification.

FREE VERSE  Poetry not written in a regular, rhythmical pattern, or meter. Ode to Middle School Though the beginning was scary And the end is saddening The time in between will never be forgotten Roller coasters of ups and downs Brought us all together We might not get along But we will always be connected By the three years of middle school We experienced the newness of 6th grade The adventures of 7th grade And the ending in 8th grade The end is approaching But the years will never be forgotten Where we spent three long years Or for some three short year At Lakeview Middle School

HAIKU  Three line Japanese verse form. The first and third lines of a haiku each have five syllables. The second line has seven syllables. A writer of haiku uses images to create a single, vivid picture, generally of a scene from nature.

LIMERICK  A humorous, rhyming, five line poem with a specific meter and rhyme scheme. Most limericks have three strong stresses in lines 1, 2, and 5 and two strong stresses in lines 3 and 4. Most follow the rhyme scheme AABBA.

LYRIC POEM  A highly musical verse that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker. It creates a single, unified impression.

METAPHOR  A figure of speech in which something is described as though it were something else. A metaphor, like a simile, works by pointing out a similarity between two unlike things.

METER  The poem’s rhythmical pattern that is determined by the number of stresses, or beats, in each line. The beats in each line use stressed and unstressed syllables.

NARRATIVE POEM  A poem told in verse. Has all the elements of a short story or novel.

ONOMATOPOEIA  The use of words to imitate sounds.

POETRY  One of the three major types of literature (other two are prose and drama). Types of poems include lyric, narrative, and concrete.

REPETITION  The use, more than once, of any element of language – a sound, word, phrase, clause, or sentence.

RHYME  The repetition of sounds at the ends of words.

RHYME SCHEME  A regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem. To indicate the rhyme scheme of a poem, you use letters.

RHYTHM  The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in spoken or written language.

SIMILE  A figure of speech that uses like or as to make a direct comparison between two unlike ideas.

SOUND DEVICES  Techniques used by writers to give musical effects to their writing. Some of these include onomatopoeia, alliteration, meter, and repetition.  Ex. Rhyme, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia, Repetition

STANZA  A group of lines of poetry that are usually similar in length and pattern and are separated by spaces.