1. Literary and Poetic Devices:
We Don’t Just Memorize,
We Synthesize!
...this means linking words to the bigger MEANING

2. The Power of Words In this unit we will look at individual words.
We will also look at words in as they are “added up” in the text.
Individual Words
Words “Added Up”
“Sometimes you have no control over what will happen next, as I discovered the year I was twelve years old—but sometimes you do. And when you do, that’s when it is time to take charge because you sure don’t know when the chance will come again.”
-Ana Rosa

3. The Power of Words
Words “added up” will always mean more than the sum of the individual words alone.
“Sometimes you have no control over what will happen next, as I discovered the year I was twelve years old—but sometimes you do. And when you do, that’s when it is time to take charge because you sure don’t know when the chance will come again.”
This means more!
But wait! There’s more?

4. What’s more?
The
subtle (not obvious)
meaning of the text!

5. and, drip,
war, blood,
into, cuts, the, razor,
a, is, that,
heart, it,
makes
Words “added up” will always mean more than the sum of the individual words alone.
War is a razor
That cuts into the heart
And makes it d r i p
blood.

6. In this unit, you will learn
The name of each literary device
How the literary device connects to the meaning of the poem or text
How and why a writer use a literary device
Why a particular poem or text selection is important
In our unit on The Color of My Words and poetry,
you deserve more than a list of poetic terms,
or a multiple-choice test on literary term definitions,
or a worksheet that asks you to label similes or metaphors.

7. The essential questions will be
How and why does
this particular writer
use this particular
device?
How the literary device connects to the meaning of the poem or text?
Why do we even care?

8. Layers of meaning peel away to reveal more layers of meaning.
Good readers
see the connections between
literary devices
( ex: figurative language)
and the author’s meaning.
Layers of meaning peel away
to reveal more layers of meaning.

9. Learning literary terms and tying them to meaning provides solid rungs for you to climb your way to success in middle school, high school and college.
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