PRINCIPLE,. ELEMENTS OF CNF

PRINCIPLES ,ELEMENTS OF CNF

1. Flexibity of Form . Creative nonfiction can follow any form -essay ,short story ,even poetry .
           2.Literary Approach to nonfiction .Use of Literary devices like tone, POV,  dialoque,                                  description,flashback ,and forward
   
           3.Self-recovery /Exploration .Creative nonfiction is all about exploring an idea or issue ; self                      discovery and exploration is a result .
 
          4.Personal presence .The writer's voice create an identify -usually themselves (1st person).

          5. Veracity .Conveying the truth ;documentable subjects; in other wordsincluding facts and                       critical analysis.

Elements of Creative Nonfiction

The creative nonfiction writer often incorporates several elements of nonfiction when writing a memoir, personal essay, travel writing, and so on. The following is a brief explanation of the most common elements of nonfiction:

• Fact. The writing must be based on fact, rather than fiction. It cannot be made up.
• Extensive research. The piece of writing is based on primary research, such as an interview or personal experience, and often secondary research, such as gathering information from books, magazines, and newspapers.
• Reportage/reporting. The writer must be able to document events or  personal experiences.
• Personal experience and personal opinion. Often, the writer includes personal experience, feelings, thoughts, and opinions. For instance, when writing a personal essay or memoir.
• Explanation/Exposition. The writer is required to explain the personal experience or topic to the reader.
• Essay format. Creative nonfiction is often written in essay format. Example: Personal Essay, Literary Journalistic essay, brief essay.

 Principles, elements, techniques, and devices

1. 1. Principles, Elements, Techniques, and Devices of Creative Nonfiction Prepared by: Marrianne S. Ledesma, LPT
2. 2. Plot or Plot Structure How to Begin:  Catchy and clever titles have an advantage. Examples: “The Wild Man of Green Swamp” by Maxine Hong Kingston “ The Courage of Turtles” by Edward Hoagland  Titles should give the reader a quick idea of what to expect, without giving away the whole story (Hidalgo, 56-57)
3. 3. The First Paragraph Ways of Writing your First Paragraph for CNF  Passage of Vivid Description  Quotation  List  Dialogue  Little Scene  Anecdote  Question  Striking Statement  Reference to a current event which serves as the context of the action
4. 4. How to End? It is expected that the ending of a creative nonfiction piece is the logical conclusion of the flow of your narrative or the development of your ideas. You must constantly bear in mind that the reader should be left with a sense of completion. However, satisfying the ending does not mean that you need to answer or resolve the issues that you raised in the essay you may even wish to end by suggesting new problems or asking other questions. ( Hidalgo, 109)
5. 5. Character or Characterization Ways Of Revealing Your Characters In A Creative Nonfiction Piece  Direct Description  Action and Reaction  Other Character’s Opinion  Dialogue  Monologue  Focusing on a Character’s Distinct or Idiosyncratic Behavior
6. 6. Point of View “ a good piece of creative nonfiction has a personal voice, a clearly defined point of view, which will reveal itself in the tone, and be presented through scene, summary and description, as it is in fiction. All its strategies are designed to reach out to the readers and draw them in –again, as in fiction- without losing tract of the facts. ( Hidalgo 6) What does it suppose to mean?
7. 7. Approach/Angle First Person Second Person Third Person Point of View OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE The writer’s attitude towards the subject. Tone and Voice
8. 8. Point of View in CNF  First Person Point of View • This is used when you are relating an event that you experienced first hand.  Second Person Point of View • This is used when you decide to write a piece and you want to sound as if you are actually talking or addressing another person, yourself where “you” actually the writer, or something abstract like love, peace or justice or a place or location like the city , the nation, etc.  Third Person Point of View • This is used when you quote what a real person has said which results to “he said/she said” type of narrative or when you are describing someone in your creative nonfiction piece.
9. 9. Let’s Read a CNF Example! The Death of the Moth Virginia Woolf (Aguila et. Al 48-50)
10. 10. Setting and Atmosphere Setting refers to the place, time, where and when an event happens Atmosphere or mood in creative nonfiction refers to the elements that evokes certain feelings or emotions. It is conveyed by the words used to describe the setting or reflected by the way the subject feels or the way he or she acts.
11. 11. According to Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo: “The most successful pieces of creative nonfiction are rich in details. Bare facts are never enough. They need to be fleshed out; they need to be humanized. But besides giving information, details serve other purposes. Details should be accurate and informative first. And then must be suggestive or evocative. The right details arouse emotions, evoke memories, help to produce the right response in your reader. Details are extremely important in evoking a sense of time and place. It must evoke a period as well as location. Descriptive details are of particular importance for travel writing , the point of which , to begin with , to literally transport the reader to the place to which the traveler has been”
12. 12. Let’s Read a CNF Example! Baguio (from Sojourns) Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo (Aguila, Ph.D 55-57)
13. 13. Literary Concerns: Structure, Symbols or Symbolisms, Irony, Figures of Speech

UNDERSTANDING CREATIVE NONFICTION

UNDERSTANDING CREATIVE NONFICTION

What is Creative Nonfiction?

  The words “creative” and “nonfiction” describe the form. The word “creative” refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques fiction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present nonfiction—factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner. The goal is to make nonfiction stories read like fiction so that your readers are as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy.

The word “creative” has been criticized in this context because some people have maintained that being creative means that you pretend or exaggerate or make up facts and embellish details. This is completely incorrect. It is possible to be honest and straightforward and brilliant and creative at the same time.

"Creative” doesn’t mean inventing what didn’t happen, reporting and describing what wasn’t there. It doesn’t mean that the writer has a license to lie. The cardinal rule is clear—and cannot be violated. This is the pledge the writer makes to the reader—the maxim we live by, the anchor of creative nonfiction: “You can’t make this stuff up!” 

Examples of Creative Nonfiction

• "Coney Island at Night," by James Huneker
• "An Experiment in Misery," by Stephen Crane
• "In Mammoth Cave," by John Burroughs
• "Outcasts in Salt Lake City," by James Weldon Johnson
• "Rural Hours," by Susan Fenimore Cooper
• "The San Francisco Earthquake," by Jack London
• "The Watercress Girl," by Henry Mayhew

SIGNIFICANCE IN STUDYING CNF

SIGNIFICANCE IN STUDYING CNF

French advances towards creative writing:
Inspired by the emergence of creative writing courses abroad, the French have also changed their habits and feelings towards writing at the university level. As of 2016, a few Masters programs have opened their doors, as well as a « Doctorat Pratique et Théorie de la Création littéraire et artistique » being created at the Aix-Marseilles University. Thus creative writing is slowly being developed and accepted in French universities.

Creative but not only:
Creative writing is not only a means to help students unleash their creative side and feel more comfortable when writing in and about everyday life, but has also been proven to improve language learning. At our very own university, creative writing has been used as a new approach to mastering a foreign language. For the past eight years, it has been a part of the English studies, implemented by Sara Greaves and Marie-Laure Schultze, both researchers teaching at Aix-Marseille University. Their workshops are designed to offer an alternative method to learning and practicing English by appealing to the student’s imagination and feelings. The dissociation of form and meaning has a way of “revitalizing language relationships” and thus improving writing skills1. By writing in a creative way instead of an academic one, students have to adjust their skills to make the language their own and open themselves to the otherness of the tongue (2015). The creative writing classes taking place at the AMU operate at the nexus between language, literature and translation classes.

Creative writing at an academic level is more than just an asset: it is a flourishing discipline, helping students with their personal writing as well as academic writing, and has also proven to be very effective in language learning, which still has a long way to go and much more to offer.

TESTEMONIO

TESTEMONIO

    Testimonio is generally defined as a first-person narration of socially significant experiences in which the narrative voice is that of a typical or extraordinary witness or protagonist who metonymically represents others who have lived through similar situations and who have rarely given written expression to them.

.Examples <Biography of a Runaway Slave 

Miguel Barnet

Nick Hill, tr.

This is arguably where the testimonial novel was born. Barnet, an anthropologist, interviewed Esteban Montejo in his 103rd year, a man who had lived in Cuba both as a slave and a fugitive slave and who fought in the island’s War of Independence against Spain. The resulting book didn’t fit easily into any existing category of literature or anthropology and came to be known as testimonio.

Rigoberta Menchú 

Ann Wright, tr.

Doubtless the best-known and also most-contested example of testimonio, this work conveys the harrowing facts of being indigenous in Guatemala. A point of entry into testimonial narrative, it is also worth returning to, as it suggests several stories at once—including how the testimonial novel can be riven in two, with the story told by the speaker and the one rendered a text by another ultimately incompatible. The famous controversy that looms over this work, pitting Menchú’s memory against a few facts dug up by a dogged anthropologist, should not distract the reader. 

 

BLOGS

BLOGS

    A blog can be your online journal, for instance, where you will express your thoughts and feelings and share them with the world. It can be anything you want it to be, but the key to its success is providing real value to your readers using a friendly and conversational tone of voice while remaining consistent.

EXAMPLES OF STUDENTS BLOGS

1. The Geelong College Middle School (note, some of these are public and some are password protected)
2. Jurupa Hills High School Photography
3. SCHS Open Studio — high school ceramics.

TRUE NARRATIVES

      TRUE NARRATIVES

     A true narrative essay, remember is a story, based on actual events. ... The form of the true narrative is undefined; the purpose in telling the story is to express a point or observation

       EXAMPLES ABOUT A TRUE NARRATIVES

Friendship Friendship, defined from Webster’s Dictionary as, the state of being friends, or a friendly feeling. The second definition states a friend as an ally, supporter, or sympathizer. Many people accept the dictionary’s definition of friendship as "the quality or condition of having a personal attachment to another by feelings of affection or personal regard." My personal definition of what friendship is, is a feeling or emotion expressed in such a way that another feels wanted and important.

picture of true narratives

REFLECTION ESSAY

REFLECTION ESSAY

   <A reflective essay is a paper that entails a writer to expound about their personal experience and relate to the audience appropriately through writing. The experience matters along with personal ideas, opinions and even feelings about the situation and how the situation affected the author or others.

EXAMPLES OF REFLECTION ESSAY

My Earliest Memory

Recalling one’s earliest memories is no joke. We are not computers and knowing the exact sequence of one’s memories is no small task—in fact, I think it is impossible. Also, we are easily affected by seeing media about our childhood and confusing that with memories. I have seen my tapes of me at around 3 years old and whatnot, and sometimes I mistakenly think memories of these tapes are original memories. Anyways, I think I recalled my first memory, and there were no photographs or videos taken at the time.

I believe I was in first grade (“Mechanicsburg Area School District”). The room was bright and full of children. We had made paper airplanes and were throwing them around the room, seeing whose airplanes would go the furthest—or not thinking at all and just throwing them around. Laughter, and the loud noises of children yelling and making funny noises. That is about it.

However, if I garner memories from media and the facts of life, I can proclaim a new first memory. But if we take “childhood amnesia” into account, it is not possible for me to have a real long-term memory about myself before the age of 7. Early in our childhood, the structures of our brain that create and sustain memories are not so well developed (Gammon, Kate). There are many theories as to why the brain develops in this way, but I think it has to do with not remembering all the falls, accidents, and other issues in one’s childhood so one can grow up mentally stable.

Anyways, I know my first word was “choo choo,” because I lived next to a train station until I was three years old. I know that I used to go on the tire swing outside of our rickety house, and swing on it in the first three years of my life. I remember hitting my head as I crashed into my twin brother when running around the house—but that was after three years of age, when we moved to another house. However, I know of these happenings only from watching home videos.

It is clear that we forget more and more of our childhood as we age. For me to retain that around 7 years old I was throwing around paper airplanes in my first grade class is not uncommon: most adults cannot remember much before 5-7 years of age (Gammon, Kate). But I think I remembered this moment because it was very happy. Research shows that memories are more likely to stay if they are linked with strong emotions. I always enjoyed throwing around paper airplanes, but throwing them around with a bunch of classmates probably was an ecstatic moment.

Why are our first memories important? Not only are they novelties, but I think they are illustrative of who we are. I consider myself a generally positive person, and my first memory was happy. I think how we remember our childhood can be a key to knowing who we are at the moment. Countless people will tell you that the events that happened in their childhood affected them for the rest of their lives. These imprints on their lives are so significant and often out of their control. As Jess Cotton from The School of Life puts it, “We can tell that our imbalances date from the past because they reflect the way of thinking and instincts of the children we once were. Without anything pejorative being meant by this, our way of being unbalanced tends towards a fundamental immaturity, bearing the marks of what was once a young person’s attempt to grapple with something utterly beyond their capacities. For example, when they suffer at the hands of an adult, children almost invariably take what happens to them as a reflection of something that must be very wrong with them” (The School of Life).

I recalled my first memory, and it was a happy one about throwing paper airplanes in my first grade class. It seems I generally generated good memories during childhood. I believe this prompted me to have a positive adult life. I wish I could remember more before this memory, but due to “childhood amnesia,” it is not possible.

TRAVELOGUE

TRAVELOGUE

     

What Is a Travelogue?

If you think that “travelogue” only refers to something in a written form decorated with a few pictures, you would be wrong. Of course, a piece of writing is the first thing that we imagine when we hear this word. Still, a story about the journey can also be demonstrated as a motion picture, lecture, or talk accompanied by photos or a presentation. In our guide, we’ll talk about a travelogue with an essay-type structure. However, you are free to use certain tips for other forms of travelogues.

  

Example of Travelogue: Koktebel

Land Of The Blue Hills

Many beat-up travelers claim that the country of contrasts is India. It can be described as a rich land where poor people live. I did not have a chance to see this with my own eyes, but I was lucky to visit the place that greatly impressed me with its great diversities. Situated on the picturesque shore of the Black Sea, Koktebel is one of the most popular resorts in Crimea, and I really understand why.

When I visited it for the first time, I was astonished by its calmness. Being in the city was like being in a deep dream. One morning, the beaches were empty except for some romantic couples sitting on the sand with coffee thermoses, waiting for the sunrise. The lighting produced by the sunrise can be quite magical. Sadly, however, this most impressive part of the day occurs before many people wake up. But, thank goodness, that day I was among those people who set their alarm clocks a bit early to enjoy the beauty of the moment. I wondered why this place was known as “the land of the blue hills”. It would be better to call it “the land of the best sunrises”.

Nevertheless, I understood in just a few minutes. I looked away from the sunrise on the horizon and saw the heavy clouds invading the top of the mountains, covering them scene gave the impression of visiting the land of the blue hills.

After enjoying such an amazing scene, I went to the hotel to take a rest. There are several choices in which to stay in Koktebel. Accommodations can be either in a small hotel or in one of the hundreds of guesthouses run by local residents. It seems as though the whole population there turns into innkeepers in the summer. They gladly meet the tourists and do their best to satisfy all their needs. However, if you want to be closer to nature, you may stay in a tent camp. Staying in a tent is a great way to be in the fresh air. If you need camping assistance, many travelers are at your service to provide friendly and helpful advice. I thought that it would be great to stay in a camp next time.

When I decided to explore my recreation place, I took a walk in the direction of the bay. What I saw was a mixture of public and private beaches with a paved walkway all along the bay. This walkway was lined with small restaurants, cafes, kiosks, and small market areas selling all types of goods such as arts and crafts, dried fish, or slices of home-baked cake. I felt as if I was not in Ukraine, but abroad. The cuisine was predominantly Tatar, so I had a chance to enjoy these traditional dishes. Frankly speaking, I was surprised by the fact that I was in Ukraine, but there were only a few places where I could find Ukrainian food. Later the local people explained to me this phenomenon has a historical background.

Koktebel is known by making good wines and cognacs. So my advice to you, if you visit there one day, is to try the wine and take a bottle with you as a present for friends. A glass of red wine with a delightful supper in one of the small, quaint restaurants on the bay will make your evening unforgettable. To better experience this atmosphere, I went on an excursion at the wine and cognac factory. I saw the process of making such wonderful wines with my own eyes. The process is tough and requires much effort, but many years of constant practice shows the result.

In the evening, I decided to take a walk and relax. I was astonished by the fact that such a quiet place in the mornings came alive with many small music discos, drinks, food and entertainment in the evenings. The beachfront was alive; it was full of talented people presenting fire shows, singing and playing musical instruments. The atmosphere was amazing, and people were taking pictures of everything they saw, as all of us had a chance to watch a wonderful show.

Koktebel is now well-known for its jazz festival that usually takes place in the middle of September. Thankfully, I was lucky to experience this myself, as I came just in time. Ukraine hosts one of the largest music festivals in the world, with hundreds of music fans gathering there annually. As for me, I liked the festival for its unofficial and democratic spirit, induced by the place itself and the inspiring combination of jazz and the sea. The remarkable nature of the volcanic mountain range located near Koktebel, and the variety of wines and brandies grown in the vineyards nearby, completed the experience.

PERSONAL NARRATIVES

PERSONAL NARRATIVES

   <A personal narrative essay is about a personal experience, so it is usually written in the first person. To maximize its impact, the essay should:

• Be written to have an emotional impact on the reader

• Include a lot of references to sensory perceptions and emotions

• Use vivid details and imagery

There are several types of personal essays in creative nonfiction. The most popular is the personal narrative essay or memoir essay. It focuses on a personal experience that is a turning point, a change in direction, an event that has significant meaning, and also shares a universal truth with readers

examples:

"It was the middle of springtime and across from my house where the incident took place. There was a lake there in which my brother and I loved to explore from time to time. The humidity and water drops where reminiscent of a fully functional sauna. The onslaught of heat and burning glow of the sun was relentless."

 

JOURNALISM / REPORTAGE

JOURNALISM / REPORTAGE

The term literary journalism is sometimes used interchangeably with CREATIVE NONFICTION more often, however, it is regarded as one type of creative nonfiction.

Highly regarded literary journalists in the U.S. today include JOHN MCPHEE, Jane Kramer, Mark Singer, and Richard Rhodes. Some notable literary journalists of the past century include Stephen Crane, Jack London, George Orwell, and Tom Wolfe.

     The genre of literary reportage is situated between journalism and literature. It has in common with journalism its relation to actuality. Reportage refers to cultural and social reality, past developments, and current affairs. ... As a result, it can hardly avoid providing stereotyped interpretations of reality.

• Classic Examples of Literary Journalism

  • A Hanging by; George Orwell
  • The Sanfrancisco Earthquake by; Jack London
  • The Water Cress Girl by;Henry Mayhew
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  • Reportage, for example, depicts a story or event in a report-like fashion. Unlike traditional styles of photography, reportage photographs are often less formal and portray their characters in a pose-free way that occurs naturally, not staged. However, in wedding reportage photography there is often direct intervention for images like group photos of the entire wedding party, and portraits of the bridge and groom.
    Photo reportage is quite common on stock photo agency websites, and mainly depict photos of reporters and photographers shooting at an event
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LITERARY

LITERARY

Literary terms refer to the technique, style, and formatting used by writers and speakers to masterfully emphasize, embellish, or strengthen their compositions. Literary terms can refer to playful techniques employed by comedians to make us laugh or witty tricks wordsmiths use to coin new words or phrases. They can also include the tools of persuasion that writers use to convince and drive audiences to action. With their carefully crafted speeches geared towards both logical and emotional thinking, they challenge our everyday modes of thinking.

Literary terms also include powerful figurative language that writers use to summon emotion ranging from guilt to anger to bliss, and to allow us to see the world in new and magical ways. Words can be arranged to give poems, songs, and prose alike, rhythm and musicality. They can animate a story with such wealth of detail, character development, and action that as readers, we are taken by a story, and feel as if the people on the page are real. Literary terms have a wide range of application, from the poet’s beauty, to the speaker’s persuasion, to the novelist’s story development.

EXAMPLES

Alliteration

Alliteration is a literary term that means two or more words in a row that all start with the same sounds. For example:

• Three grey geese in a green field grazing, Grey were the geese and green was the grazing. - Three Grey Geese by Mother Goose
• Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight. - Dr. Seuss's ABC by Dr Seuss
• What kind of bug is in the rosy red rectangle box? A bright blue big-mouth bug. - More Bugs in Boxes by David Carter
• Two toucans tying ties, turtles tasting tea, and tigers trying trousers. - Faint Frogs Feeling Feverish and other terrifically tantalizing tongue twisters by Lilian Obligado
• Runk lives in rain barrels and eats raindrops, rusty rainbows - Zoophabets by Robert Tallon

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a literary term that refers to an exaggeration. Examples are:

• Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. - Babe, the Blue Ox
• It piled up to the ceiling.

It covered the floor.

It blocked the door.

It went down the hall.

It raised the roof - Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out by Shel Silverstein

• They have yarns

Of a skyscraper so tall they had to put hinges

On the two top stories so to let the moon go by - Yarns of the People by Carl Sandburg

• There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket,

Seventeen times as high as the moon; - The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket by Walter Crane

• There was a Young Lady whose nose,

Was so long that it reached to her toes;

So she hired an Old Lady,

Whose conduct was steady,

To carry that wonderful nose. - Book of Nonsense Limerick 41 by Edward Lear

Metaphor

Metaphor is a literary term for comparing two things directly. Examples are:

• The rain came down in long knitting needles. - National Velvet by Enid Bagnold

• Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World, he goes. - Summer Sun by Robert Louis Stevenson

• I am the creamy white frost in vanilla ice cream

and the milky smooth brown in a chocolate bar

I am the midnight blue in a licorice stick

and the golden brown in sugar - Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children by Sandra L. Pinkney and Myles C. Pinkney,

• Eagle gliding in the sky,

circling, circling way up high-

wind is whistling through your wings.

You're a graceful kite with no string. - Creatures from Earth, Sea, and Sky: Poems by Georgia Heard and Jennifer Owings Dewey

• Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops

Let the rain sing you a lullaby

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk

The rain makes running pools in the gutter

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night

And I love the rain. - April Rain Song by Langston Hughes

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is a literary term used when a word imitates the sound it is describing. Examples are:

• Pitter, patter. Pit. Pit. Patter. Splitter, splatter, down comes the rain - Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan

• Our washing machine went wishity whirr

Whisity whisity whisity whirr - Our Washing Machine by Patricia Hubbell

• Bow-wow, says the dog,

Mew, mew says the cat,

Grunt, grunt, goes the hog,

And squeak goes the rat. - Animals by Mother Goose

• When Pop drops pop-bottles

Pop-bottles plop!

Pop-bottle-tops topple!

Pop mops slop! - Song of the Pop-Bottlers by Morris Bishop

• Susie's galoshes

Make splishes and sploshes

And slooshes and sloshes

As Susie steps slowly along in the slush. - Galoshes by Rhonda Bacmeister

Personification

Personification is a literary term for giving human attributes to objects or animals. Examples are:

• 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. - Mother Goose

• There's a cat named Joe and you wouldn't want to know

But he thinks he'd like to be a Hippopotamus...

Oh, it wouldn't be so bad if he was certified as mad

But he's not... he holds a normal conversation - A Cat Named Jo by Leighton B Watts

• My food loves to prance, to jump, to dance;

I wait for the time, I wait for the chance! - My Dinner Loves Dancing by L. John Riley Jr.

• In the book The House Takes a Vacation by Jacqueline Davies: When the family goes on vacation, the house decides to go on vacation, too.

• In Charlotte's Web by E.B. White: The pig and the spider converse throughout the book.

Alliteration

Alliteration is a literary term that means two or more words in a row that all start with the same sounds. For example:

• Three grey geese in a green field grazing, Grey were the geese and green was the grazing. - Three Grey Geese by Mother Goose
• Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight. - Dr. Seuss's ABC by Dr Seuss
• What kind of bug is in the rosy red rectangle box? A bright blue big-mouth bug. - More Bugs in Boxes by David Carter
• Two toucans tying ties, turtles tasting tea, and tigers trying trousers. - Faint Frogs Feeling Feverish and other terrifically tantalizing tongue twisters by Lilian Obligado
• Runk lives in rain barrels and eats raindrops, rusty rainbows - Zoophabets by Robert Tallon

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a literary term that refers to an exaggeration. Examples are:

• Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. - Babe, the Blue Ox
• It piled up to the ceiling.

It covered the floor.

It blocked the door.

It went down the hall.

It raised the roof - Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out by Shel Silverstein

• They have yarns

Of a skyscraper so tall they had to put hinges

On the two top stories so to let the moon go by - Yarns of the People by Carl Sandburg

• There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket,

Seventeen times as high as the moon; - The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket by Walter Crane

• There was a Young Lady whose nose,

Was so long that it reached to her toes;

So she hired an Old Lady,

Whose conduct was steady,

To carry that wonderful nose. - Book of Nonsense Limerick 41 by Edward Lear

Metaphor

Metaphor is a literary term for comparing two things directly. Examples are:

• The rain came down in long knitting needles. - National Velvet by Enid Bagnold

• Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World, he goes. - Summer Sun by Robert Louis Stevenson

• I am the creamy white frost in vanilla ice cream

and the milky smooth brown in a chocolate bar

I am the midnight blue in a licorice stick

and the golden brown in sugar - Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children by Sandra L. Pinkney and Myles C. Pinkney,

• Eagle gliding in the sky,

circling, circling way up high-

wind is whistling through your wings.

You're a graceful kite with no string. - Creatures from Earth, Sea, and Sky: Poems by Georgia Heard and Jennifer Owings Dewey

• Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops

Let the rain sing you a lullaby

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk

The rain makes running pools in the gutter

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night

And I love the rain. - April Rain Song by Langston Hughes

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is a literary term used when a word imitates the sound it is describing. Examples are:

• Pitter, patter. Pit. Pit. Patter. Splitter, splatter, down comes the rain - Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan

• Our washing machine went wishity whirr

Whisity whisity whisity whirr - Our Washing Machine by Patricia Hubbell

• Bow-wow, says the dog,

Mew, mew says the cat,

Grunt, grunt, goes the hog,

And squeak goes the rat. - Animals by Mother Goose

• When Pop drops pop-bottles

Pop-bottles plop!

Pop-bottle-tops topple!

Pop mops slop! - Song of the Pop-Bottlers by Morris Bishop

• Susie's galoshes

Make splishes and sploshes

And slooshes and sloshes

As Susie steps slowly along in the slush. - Galoshes by Rhonda Bacmeister

Personification

Personification is a literary term for giving human attributes to objects or animals. Examples are:

• 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. - Mother Goose

• There's a cat named Joe and you wouldn't want to know

But he thinks he'd like to be a Hippopotamus...

Oh, it wouldn't be so bad if he was certified as mad

But he's not... he holds a normal conversation - A Cat Named Jo by Leighton B Watts

• My food loves to prance, to jump, to dance;

I wait for the time, I wait for the chance! - My Dinner Loves Dancing by L. John Riley Jr.

• In the book The House Takes a Vacation by Jacqueline Davies: When the family goes on vacation, the house decides to go on vacation, too.

• In Charlotte's Web by E.B. White: The pig and the spider converse throughout the book.

If you are looking for ways to translate this information into the classroom, check out this Literary Terms lesson plan. YourDictionary also has a Literary Terms Worksheet as well as terms which would be particularly important for the seventh grade and the high school student.