Grade 7
Unit 2:
Literary Techniques
English
Lesson 1
Lesson x.y
Figures of Speech and
Lesson
Sound Title
Devices
English
Learning Competency
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to analyze literary texts as
expressions of individual or communal values within (EN7LIT-I-1)
● Structural context
○ figures of speech and sound devices
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Learning Targets
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to do the following:
○ Identify figures of speech and three sound devices commonly used
in poetry.
○ Explain the impact of a specific figure of speech or sound device
on the reader’s understanding or emotional response.
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Essential
Question
How do figures of speech and sound devices enhance the meaning and emotional
impact of a text?
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Warm-Up
Figures and Sounds Scavenger Hunt
1. The class will be divided into small groups of three to four learners.
2. Each group will receive a short poem or a poem excerpt.
3. Identify any figures of speech and sound devices used in your given
text.
4. Write them down, and briefly discuss in your group how these
elements impact your understanding or emotional response to the
text.
5. Prepare to share your findings with the class.
Warm-Up
Guide Questions
1. What figures of speech did you identify in your text?
2. Are there any sound devices present? If so, what are they?
3. How do these elements contribute to your understanding or feeling
about the text?
Unlocking of Difficulty
1. hemlock (noun) – a poisonous plant
The detective discovered that the victim had been poisoned with hemlock.
2. Lethe (noun) – in classical mythology, a river in Hades whose water causes
forgetfulness
After drinking from the river Lethe, he forgot all his past sufferings.
3. dryad (noun) – a nymph inhabiting a tree or a forest, especially in Greek
mythology
In the ancient tale, the dryad warned the lumberjack not to cut down her sacred
tree.
4. Provençal (adjective) – relating to Provence, a region in southeastern France
She loved the Provençal style of cooking, full of herbs and fresh ingredients.
5. Hippocrene (noun) – a fountain on Mount Helicon sacred to the Muses and
regarded as a source of poetic inspiration
Learn about It
Figures of speech are rhetorical devices that involve an arrangement
or application of words to convey meaning or create effects in speech or
writing.
Learn about It
Figures of Speech
Simile – a comparison between two unlike things using the words like or
as
Example: My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk
Learn about It
Figures of Speech
Metaphor – a direct comparison between two unlike things
Example: That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
Learn about It
Figures of Speech
Personification – giving human qualities to nonhuman things or
abstract concepts
Example:
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Learn about It
Figures of Speech
Hyperbole – exaggerated statements for emphasis or effect
Example:
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Learn about It
Figures of Speech
Irony – a figure of speech in which the opposite of what you expect to
happen occurs
● situational irony – shows a discrepancy between the expected
outcome and the actual outcome of a situation
● verbal irony – occurs when a speaker says something but means the
opposite, usually for emphasis, humor, or to make a point
● dramatic irony – when the audience knows something that the
characters in the story do not know, creating tension or humor
Learn about It
Figures of Speech
Oxymoron – two contradictory terms side by side
Example: Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Learn about It
Sound devices refer to patterns of word sounds used to create an
emotional effect or to lay emphasis.
Learn about It
Sound Devices
Assonance – the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words
Example: The leaves on the trees seemed to whisper softly in the
breeze.
Learn about It
Consonance – the repetition of consonant sounds at the end or in the
middle of words
Example: She held her backpack tightly while hiking the rocky track.
Learn about It
Alliteration – the repetition of the same initial letter in closely
connected or immediately sequential words
Example: Lazy lions lounging in the local library
Learn about It
Onomatopoeia – involves words that phonetically imitate the sound
they describe
Example: How they clang, and clash, and roar!
Learn about It
Ode to a Nightingale (excerpt)
John Keats
Learn about It
Guide Questions
1. Can you find a simile that compares how the speaker is feeling to
something else? What is it?
2. What metaphor is used to describe the Nightingale? What do you
think it means?
3. What sound device can you find in the phrase “Fade far away,
dissolve”?
4. How do the figures of speech, like similes and metaphors, help you
understand the feelings of the speaker in the poem?
5. Do the sound devices make the poem more interesting to read or
Analysis
Read the poem and answer the questions that follow.
Eve of St. Agnes (excerpt)
John Keats
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Analysis
Short-Response Questions
1. What figure of speech is evident in the line “his frosted breath, Like pious
incense from a censer old”?
2. How does the use of the term “frozen grass” impact the reader's
emotional response toward the setting of the poem?
3. What sound device is used in the line “Past the sweet Virgin's picture,
while his prayer he saith”?
4. How does the image of the “sculptur'd dead” on either side of the chapel
aisle enhance the atmosphere of the poem?
5. What emotion or feeling is evoked by the description of the Beadsman's
“frosted breath, Like pious incense from a censer old”?
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Values Integration
How can understanding figures of speech and sound devices
enhance our appreciation of Filipino poetry and literature?
Synthesis Activity
Using the figures of speech and sound devices you have learned,
compose a six-line poem about a personal experience or a Filipino
cultural event.
Guide Questions
1. Which figures of speech did you use in your poem and why?
2. How do sound devices enhance the rhythm or flow of your poem?
3. What emotions were you trying to convey with your chosen words
and devices?
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Additional Exercise
To Autumn (excerpt)
John Keats
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Additional Exercise
1. What figure of speech is used in “Close bosom-friend of the maturing
sun”?
2. How does the term “mists and mellow fruitfulness” contribute to the
atmosphere of the poem?
3. Identify the sound device in the line “With fruit the vines that round
the thatch-eves run.”
4. What feeling does the image “Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy
cells” evoke?
5. How does the poet use imagery to depict the transition from summer
to autumn?
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References
Abrams, M.H. and and
Peregoy, Suzanne, Harpham,
Owen F.Geoffrey Galt. 2012.
Boyle. Reading, A Glossary
Writing, of Literary
and Learning in ESL. Terms, 11th
New York: ed. Boston,
Longman, 1997.MA:
Cengage Learning.
Puzo, Mario. The Godfather. New York: Signet, 1978.
Corbett,
Redmon, Edward P. J.,
Allen H. “Howand Many
Connors, Robert J.Are
Lebowskis 1999. Classical
There? Genre,Rhetoric for theAuthorship,
Spectatorial Modern Student. 4th Big
and The ed.
Lebowski.”
Oxford: OxfordJournal of Press.
University Popular Film & Television 40, no. 2 (2012): 52–61. doi:10.1080/
01956051.2011.613422
Keats, John. 1884. The Poetical Works of John Keats. Project Gutenberg. Accessed September 18, 2023.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23684/23684-h/23684-h.htm.
Perrine, Laurence, and Arp, Thomas R. 2018. Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, 15th ed. Boston,
MA: Cengage Learning.
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