1. Rhetorical Devices and Poetry Vocabulary
6th Grade ELA

2. Stanza
a division of a poem made up of lines put together to convey meaning or fit a certain rhyme or rhythm pattern
When writing poetry, skip a line between stanzas.

3. Rhythm
A flow of rising and falling sounds in a poem or song that helps give the verse a flowing sound
Consists of stressed and unstressed syllables
Example: Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.

4. Echo Repeating of a sound, word, phrase or line in a poem
In songs, this is usually called the chorus.
Often helps connect stanzas to one another
Next slide gives an example of a poem using echo

5. Sleeping Outside by: Kristine O’Connell George
Small me,
in a small tent
staked to a huge planet
rolling slowly through open space –
alone.
still wide awake
under a wide starred sky,
almost – almost – feeling the earth
turning.

6. Rhyme
Repeating the same ending sound in several words within a line, phrase or stanza
Many times, rhyme comes at the end of lines in poems and has a specific pattern such as ABAB or AABB
Example: Jack and Jill
went up the hill,

7. Rhyme Patterns Jack and Jill went up the hill A
To fetch a pail of water. B
Jack fell down and broke his crown, C
And Jill came tumbling after. B
AABCCB

8. Alliteration
Repeating the same initial/beginning consonant sound in several words within the same line or phrase
Example: The raging river roared.

9. Betty Botter by Mother Goose
Betty Botter bought some butter, but, she said, the butter’s bitter; if I put it in my batter it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter will make my batter better. So she bought a bit of butter better than her bitter butter, and she put it in her batter and the batter was not bitter. So ’twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.

10. Assonance
Repeating the same vowel sounds in words that have different consonants within the same line or phrase
Example: The mad cat ran after the rabid rat.

11. Repetitive Vowel Sounds - Assonance
"As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives,  Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats,  Every cat had seven kittens: kittens, cats, sacks and wives,  How many were going to St. Ives?"

12. Onomatopoeia
The use of a word that sounds like the thing that it stands for
Usually these words are verbs
Examples: Sizzle, Buzz, Smack, Rustle, Pop

13. The Sweetest Roll Drive draw and dish. can turn nothing into swish
as I resist temptation
to let one pop
from the top
of the key.
Could be worth three,
but only if I make it.
Fake it
then take it strong
to the hole
with soul
looking to finish
with a finger roll.
To the left
To the right
earthbound legs take flight
ready to excite the crowd
into a frenzy
Victory-
Could be-
if my finger roll
can clear the trees.
As I rise high
to the sky
I Let fly
my All
with the Ball
as the buzzer sounds
and the swish
falls.
The Sweetest Roll

14. Hyperbole An extreme exaggeration that emphasizes a point
It is not meant to be taken literally
Example: I am so hungry I could eat a horse!

15. Appetite
In a house the size of a postage stamp lived a man as big as a barge. His mouth could drink the entire river You could say it was rather large For dinner he would eat a trillion beans And a silo full of grain, Washed it down with a tanker of milk As if he were a drain.

16. Personification
A type of metaphor in which human characteristics or feelings are given to an animal or object
Example: The young kitten jumped for joy!
Example: The grass whispers softly in the wind.

17. The Cat & The Fiddle
Hey diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon.
By Mother Goose

18. Simile
A way of describing something using the words “like” or “as” in a comparison
Example: Her hair is as beautiful as a sunset.
Example: His eyes twinkled like stars in the sky.

19. Flint
An emerald is as green as grass, A ruby red as blood; A sapphire shines as blue as heaven; A flint lies in the mud.
A diamond is a brilliant stone, To catch the world's desire; An opal holds a fiery spark; But a flint holds a fire.
Christina Rossetti

20. Metaphor
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players, They have their exits and their entrances
William Shakespeare

21. Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that says that one thing is another different thing. This allows us to use fewer words and forces the reader or listener to find the similarities.
The simplest form of metaphor is: "The [first thing] is a [second thing]."
Her home was a prison.
In the above sentence, we understand immediately that her home had some of the characteristics of a prison. Mainly, we imagine, she could not leave her home. She was trapped inside. Why it was a prison we do not know, but that would be clear from the context--perhaps her husband forced her to stay at home, perhaps she was afraid of the outside. We don't know, but the rest of the story would tell us. What is important here is that in five simple words we understand a lot about her environment, how she felt and how she behaved. In this sentence, "prison" is a metaphor.

22. The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding-- Riding--riding-- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

23. Original sense of the word (example)
Metaphor example
Original sense of the word (example)
The committee shot her ideas down one by one.
Anti-aircraft guns shoot down planes.
The private detective dug up enough evidence to convince the police to act.
Dogs like to hide things. They bury bones and dig them up later.
He broke into her conversation.
Burglars break into buildings.
The new movie was very popular. People flocked to see it.
Birds flock together before they migrate.
His head was spinning with ideas.
Some computer hard drives spin at over 10,000 revolutions per minute.
He was dressed rather vulgarly in a loud checked suit.
I can't hear you because the radio is too loud.
It wasn't long before their relationship turned sour.
Sour food has an acid taste like lemon or vinegar

24. Extended Metaphor
A comparison that is extended throughout a large portion of the poem.
Usually big ideas with great elaboration
Examples: Life is a Highway (Rascal Flatts), Firework (Katy Perry) – in these songs, two ideas are compared through the entire piece making them extended metaphors.