Writers like to keep their reader’s attention, right? One way that they can do this is by being creative with their writing and appealing to the reader’s senses, and also by writing in a way that makes the reading fun. One such type of literary device is alliteration. This is when two or more words begin with the same letter or sound.
Sounds of words and The Wind in the Willows
The featured book of this lesson was The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. As a class we discussed the title of the book, when it was written, the four main characters and listened to a small section of the book. The children were guided to be aware of and highlight examples of alliteration in the text.
The students then played “The alliteration game”. The students formed a circle and a student was asked to volunteer a name to begin the game. Each person in the circle then had to add a word using alliteration to form a lovely long and laborious sentence! You can see from the pictures that the children had a lot of fun playing the game.
Planning your story
The students were then given the opportunity to write their own short story involving two animals as the main characters. They were given free rein to write whatever they wanted whilst trying to include examples of alliteration in their stories.
Before they began writing, the students were given guidance on how to plan their story. The teacher noted on the whiteboard the following plan and encouraged the students to follow suit.
• Write down two animals (goat and lamb) and give them names (Billy and Lilly)
• List two character traits under each animal to help with planning
Next the teacher wrote the five W’s (Who, What, When, Where, Why) on the board as you can see in the picture above. The five W’s were each discussed and plotted out on the whiteboard. For example, it was explained to the students that the “What” should refer to “What is the problem?” because all stories should have a problem after all!
The students were then encouraged to write their own 5 W’s down and then use these as a guide to get their short story started. Our teacher’s story began like this:
“One spring morning, two friends were arguing on a hillside in France.” What will become of the two friends?
Once the students had their planning finished, they begin their own stories. You can see a lovely example below.
To find out more about alliteration why not visit our previous blog A lesson in alliteration and George’s Marvellous Medicine
Leap into Literacy provides small tutoring classes with a focus on reading comprehension and writing. Using techniques that allow students to become creative in the learning process, sessions are fun and achieve maximum results!
Classes are held at our centres in Drummoyne, Balmain, and North Willoughby, as well as other locations around Sydney, and are available for preschoolers and school age children in Years K-6.
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