Rhetorical Devices

Authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story.

• Anaphora

• Allusion

• Foreshadow

• Alliteration

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.5

Descriptive language that engages the human senses (sight, taste, smell, touch).

• Rhetorical Question

• Allusion

• Repetition

• Imagery

Tags

CCSS.L.4.5

CCSS.L.5.5

CCSS.L.6.5

CCSS.L.7.5

CCSS.L.8.5

An unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text with the intent to layer associations and meanings from these sources onto their own work.

• Allusion

• Comparison

• Ethos

• Repetiton

Tags

CCSS.L.7.5A

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

An event in literature in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are.

• Irony

• Alliteration

• Metaphor

• Pathos

Tags

CCSS.L.8.5A

Occurs when the same vowel sound repeats within a group of words. Assonance occurs when sounds, not letters, repeat.

• Oxymoron

• Paradox

• Assonance

• Logos

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.5A

When a question is asked for a reason other than to get an answer—most commonly, it's asked to make a persuasive point

• Paradox

• Rhetorical Question

• Repetition

• Persuasion

Tags

CCSS.L.11-12.6

CCSS.L.8.6

CCSS.L.9-10.6

CCSS.W.11-12.2D

CCSS.W.9-10.2D

A device that occurs in literature that seems to contradict itself, but which, upon further examination, contains some kernel of truth or reason.

• Paradox

• Oxymoron

• Analogy

• Rhetorical Question

Is when the same sound repeats in a group of words. The repeating sound must occur either in the first letter of each word, or in the stressed syllables of those words.

• Repetition

• Alliteration

• Anaphora

• Simile

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.4

CCSS.RL.7.4

When a word or phrase is repeated two or more times.

• Irony

• Logos

• Repetition

• Alliteration

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.4

CCSS.RL.7.4

A type of repetition in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences.

• Anaphora

• Oxymoron

• Analogy

• Rhetorical Question

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.4

CCSS.RL.7.4