Unit Plan 14 (Grade 8 ELA): Poetry Craft – Figurative Language & Imagery
8th graders explore how figurative language, connotation, and sound devices shape tone and meaning in poetry. Students analyze structure, rhythm, and word choice, then craft text-evidence–based explications connecting form to feeling.
Focus: Figurative language; sound devices; tone and meaning
Grade Level: 8
Subject Area: English Language Arts (Reading—Literature; Language—Vocabulary & Nuance)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
Poems pack meaning into word choice, images, and sound. This week, students learn to interpret figures of speech, track connotation and word relationships, and analyze how sound devices (rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, meter) and poetic structure shape tone and meaning. The week culminates in a short, text-evidence–driven explication.
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to…
- Determine the meaning of words and phrases in poems—including figurative language and allusions—and explain how word choice shapes tone/meaning (RL.8.4).
- Interpret figures of speech (e.g., metaphor, personification, hyperbole, irony), analyze word relationships (analogy, category/part–whole), and distinguish among connotations of near-synonyms (L.8.5a–c).
- Compare how poetic structures (form, stanza patterns, line breaks, rhyme scheme, meter) contribute to meaning and style across two poems (RL.8.5).
Standards Alignment — CCSS Grade 8
- RL.8.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases (including figurative and connotative meanings); analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions.
- L.8.5a–c: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in meaning:
- (a) Interpret figures of speech in context.
- (b) Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., cause/effect, part/whole, item/category) to deepen understanding.
- (c) Distinguish among connotations of words with similar denotations.
- RL.8.5: Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how structure contributes to meaning and style.
Success Criteria — student language
- I can explain a figure of speech and how it affects tone/meaning.
- I can name the connotation of a poet’s key word and justify it with context.
- I can identify sound devices/structure and argue how they support the poem’s idea or mood.
- I can write a clear mini-explication with precise textual evidence.