Alliteration Activities
Creative Figurative Language Writing Lessons for Middle Schoolers
Students use alliteration and consonance to write original fairy tale story titles and create poetry using words cut out of magazines.
Alliteration and Consonance in Poetry
Poetry is a celebration of sound, and students who understand how sound can evoke feeling will find new meaning in the poetry they read.
Content Areas: Language Arts (figurative language, vocabulary, dictionary skills), Fine Motor Skills, Art
Materials: Examples of poetry with alliteration and/or consonance, magazines for cutting, scissors, glue sticks, construction paper, dictionary, thesaurus,
Introductory Activity:
- Begin this activity by writing definitions for alliteration, the repetition of beginning consonant sounds, and consonance, the repetition of consonant sounds in stressed syllables but preceded by unlike vowel sounds.
- Break students into small groups or pairs. Provide each group with a different poem that contains either alliteration or consonance. (Recommended poems: Emily Bronte's No Coward Soul Is Mine, Lord Byron's She Walks in Beauty, Gary Snyder's Rip Rap, Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn, Shel Silversteins's Sarah Sylvia Cynthia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out, Lanston Hughe's The Weary Blues, Wilfred Owens' Dulce et Decorum Est).
- Ask each group to find examples of repeated consonant sounds within their specific poem.
- Did they find examples of alliteration? Consonance? Both?
- Ask students to discuss the effect of various repeated sounds. How do soft sounds like /s/ and /sh/ differ from harder sounds like /k/ or /p/?
- Allow each group to share their poems and to provide examples of repeated consonants within their assigned poem. (Classroom Management Tip: Provide transparencies or computer projected examples of each poem so that all students can view the language of each poem.)
Alliterative Fairy Tale Title
- Now, working as a class, ask students to come up with a new alliterative title for The Three Little Pigs. Examples: "Hogs Hinder Huge Hungry Homicidal Hitman" or "Portly Porkers Poach Predator."
- Ask students to come up with three individual alliterative fairy tale titles of their own. Students may want to use a dictionary or thesaurus to identify alliterative words that fit their own personal title.
- Allow students to share their alliterative fairy tale titles.
Writing Poetry with Alliteration and Consonance
- Divide students into pairs.
- Provide each pair-group with construction paper, multiple magazines, a glue stick and scissors.
- Ask students to cut out letters and words from the magazine in order to create poetry that contains alliteration and consonance. Teachers might want to provide guidelines for length or ask your students to write in the style of a particular poet. Encourage Creativity!
- Share poetry at a poetry reading for parents, on the bulletin board or in a classroom newspaper.
Combine this lesson with activities that promote an understanding of figurative language and visual imagery in poetry.
The copyright of the article Alliteration Activities in Curricula by Grade is owned by Susan Hyde. Permission to republish Alliteration Activities must be granted by the author in writing.
