Elements of Poetry:

Sound Devices

8th Grade English/Language Arts Poetry Unit: Sound Devices - Blume

Take Cornell Notes.

Title is POETRY: SOUND DEVICES

Your Name
Todays Date
Blume ELA8
Period

Write words to be
defined and types of
poetic sound devices
here.

Write definitions,
explanations, and
some examples
here.

(For these notes, you do not

need to use a summary space,
as you see here.)

Alliteration
The repetition of initial consonant sounds, in two or
more neighboring words or syllables.
The wild and wooly walrus waits and wonders when we will walk by.
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees
-- from Silver by Walter de la Mare

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
(almost ALL tongue twisters!)
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Alliteration examples

Hear the music of voices, the song of a

bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra,
as if you would be stricken deaf
tomorrow. Touch each object as if
tomorrow your tactile sense would fail.
Smell the perfume of flowers
- from Three Days to See by Helen Keller

Alliteration examples

Assonance

This on
N O T o e i s u s u al l y
n
but wh the CST Test
,
y n ot k
no w i t ?
!

A repetition of vowel sounds within words or syllables.

Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese.

Free and easy.
Make the grade.
The stony walls enclosed the holy space.

Assonance examples

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
on a proud round cloud
in white high night
- E. E. Cummings

I made my way to
the lake.
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The Eagle

Assonance example

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
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Repetition

Think of all the songs

s
you know where word

and lines are repeated

often a lot !

Words or phrases repeated in writings to give emphasis,

rhythm, and/or a sense of urgency.
Example: from Edgar Allen Poes The Bells
To the swinging and the ringing
of the bells, bells, bells
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells
Bells, bells, bells
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
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Rhythm and Meter

Rhythm is the sound pattern created by stressed

and unstressed syllables.
The pattern can be regular or random.

Meter is the regular patterns of stresses

found in many poems and songs..

Rhythm is often combined with rhyme,

alliteration, and other poetic devices to add a

musical quality to the writing.

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Rhythm and Meter continued

Example:

I think that I shall never see

a poem lovely as a tree.
The purple words/syllables are
stressed, and they have a regular
pattern, so this poetic line has meter.
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Rhyme

The repetition of end sounds in words

End

rhymes appear at the end of two

or more lines of poetry.
Internal rhymes appear within a single
line of poetry.
Ring around the rosies,
A pocket full of posies,
Abednego was meek and mild; he softly spoke, he sweetly smiled.
He never called
his playmates names, and he was good in running games;
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Rhyme Scheme

=
a.k.a
also as
n
know

13

The pattern of end rhymes (of lines) in a

poem.
Letters are used to identify a poems rhyme
scheme (a.k.a rhyme pattern).
The letter a is placed after the first line and
all lines that rhyme with the first line.
The letter b identifies the next line ending
with a new sound, and all lines that rhyme
with it.
Letters continue to be assigned in sequence
to lines containing new ending sounds.
This may seem confusing, but it isnt. Really!

Rhyme Scheme continued

Examples:
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the earth so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

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Baa, baa, black sheep

Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

a
a
b
b
a
b
c
b

Rhyme Scheme continued

What is the rhyme scheme of this stanza?
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
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From Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Did you get it right? aaba

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

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a
a
b
a

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Onomatopoeia

Onom
at
consi opoeia is a
dere
lso
sound d a poetic
devic
e.

Words that sound like their meaning --the sound they describe.
buzz hiss roar meow woof rumble
howl snap zip zap blip whack
crack crash flutter flap squeak whirr..
pow plop crunch splash jingle rattle
clickety-clack bam!

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