How to Teach Literary Terms in High School English
The wise high school teacher knows that the books she teaches might fade from her student's memory. The poems they read together might go in one ear and out the other. The details of plot, characterization or setting might be fleeting knowledge. The wise teacher also knows that is okay. As long as your students leave the classroom with a better understanding of how to analyze and comprehend literature, then you have done your job. Literary terms are a large part of reading comprehension. This subject was not meant to be crammed into one unit, but instead, you should plan many discussions and activities throughout the year that create engaging and memorable learning experiences.
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Instructions
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Start the school year with a quick overview of the literary terms you want your students to know. Don't get too detailed as your primary goal is to make your students familiar with the words. Begin a discussion on the purpose of literary terms. A high school student's favorite questions are: "Why does this matter? Why would I need to know this?" Have an answer ready. Explain how important literary terms are in the comprehension and analysis of literature. Hand out reference papers to each student. List each term with its definition and an example. Tell them that they will need to keep these papers for the entire year in their notebooks.
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Assign each student one literary term. Tell them that they are responsible for being the classroom expert on that term. Whatever literature you are studying for the rest of the year, they can expect you to ask them questions about their literary terms within that work.
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Choose a few days throughout the year when you will have the students trade literary terms with their classmates. If you don't feel your class can handle working out the trades on their own, hold a game of White Elephant. Write the literary terms on separate pieces of paper. Put each in an unmarked envelope. The first student will pick a random envelope, open it and tell the class what she got. Each student after her will have a choice: either open a new envelope or take a term from someone who has already opened one. If someone takes a literary term from another student, that student will get to draw again or steal from another. Keep playing until everyone has a literary term. This will encourage the students to review all the terms, trying to pick favorites to fight for.
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Split your class into groups. Each group will create a story through a skit, comic book or piece of short fiction. Tell them that each character must be named after a literary term and can only speak using that device. For example, one character could be named Simile and will only speak using comparisons with the words "like" or "as." Another could be named Onomatopoeia who will only talk using words such as "buzz," "woof" or "bang." When the project is completed, ask your students to present their work to the class.
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Spend a day analyzing song lyrics. Ask the students to bring in popular lyrics that use literary terms. Shuffle up the papers and pass them out randomly. Have the students find as many literary terms in the lyrics as possible. Choose a few examples yourself that could be compared to the poetry you are reading in class. Open a class discussion on how the literary terms help express what the poets and songwriters are trying to communicate.
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