Sunday, October 24, 2010

What is an alliteration?

Alliteration is a term in the broader topic of figurative language.  It is often found in poetry, but can also be found in prose.  The best way that I have to get my students to remember alliteration is to think of tongue-twisters.  The definition is actually repeating initial or beginning consonant sounds in a group of words.  Tongue-twisters do this all the time.  "She sells seashells by the seashore."  In this example, the repeating sound is the "s" sound.  One thing I always do to get my students to remember this even more (sometimes remembering what a consonant is can be tricky) is to have them name the vowels:  a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y.  Any other letters are consonants.  Just tell yourself, "alliteration = tongue-twister," and you will probably remember it a little better.

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