TC Name: Maureen Tromley

Subject Area: Literacy

Topic: Lesson 1- Awesome Alliteration
Age/Grade Level: Second Grade
Unit: Poetry
Time Allotted: 1 hour
Lesson Preparation
Purpose/rationale for the lesson:
This lesson will help students to understand the definition, characteristics and structure of
alliteration. Understanding these will help each student in writing his or her own alliteration
poem.
Learning Objectives for the lesson:
After completing this lesson, students will be able to:
1. Define alliteration.
2. Identify examples of alliteration.
Standards:
Oregon State Dept. of Education Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy: Grade 2
2.RL.4 Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated
lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.
Prior Knowledge/Background Information:
Experience reading and writing different forms of poetry.
To the extent it has developed, the ability to read, write, speak and listen upon literature,
especially familiarity with discussion of characteristics and meaning of a piece of writing.
Materials/Resources Needed:
If You Were Alliteration by Speed Shaskan.
Chart paper and a marker for recording class definition of alliteration and examples.
Alliteration graphic organizer for each student.
Document camera for whole class viewing of the worksheet prior to individual work,
during which time an example of correct work will be given.
Lesson Procedures
Introduction:
[5 minutes] I will begin by gathering the students on the rug and telling them that today, we will
be learning about alliteration. I will ask for a show of hands of anyone who has heard of
alliteration before today, but if they have, Id like them to hold their thoughts on it for a moment.
I will then let them know that in order to learn more about alliteration we are going to read a
book called If You Were Alliteration by Trisha Speed Shaskan.

Body of the Lesson:

[15 minutes] I will read the book. After I finish reading the book, I will ask the class if they
might be able to share in their own words, from the book we just read or from their own prior
knowledge, what alliteration might mean. We will discuss the meaning of alliteration as a class,
helping to clarify for those students who may be having trouble understanding. I will encourage
the class to volunteer as many ideas and as much information they may have, or may have
gained, about alliteration- tell me everything they know. Ill then help the students towards
coming up with a definition of alliteration, based on what we have talked about. I will write this
definition on chart paper.
[15 minutes] We will spend some time creating some short alliteration sentences together as a
class, using each students first name and an alliterative verb- I will write them on chart paper. I
will move on to talk to the class a little about the different reasons why a writer might choose to
use alliteration in his or her writing:
Alliteration is a figure of speech.
It creates rhythm to writing.
It provides rhyming to words that makes it easy to read.
When readers read it aloud, having repetitive sound makes it flow easily.
It makes it sound like a melody to hear, which is why it is so often used in poetry.
[25 minutes] We will move on to talk about how they will be working with alliteration during
morning workshop today. I will show the class the graphic organizer they will be using on the
document camera. I will fill my own out with them, as an example. They will have the examples
on the chart paper to use as reference. I will let them know that they will be working on these as
part of their workshop today. I will also let them know that we will be coming back together on
the rug to reflect on the work and volunteers may share. I will ask the paper passers to hand out
the worksheets, and excuse the class to work on this individually. The cooperating teacher and I
will walk around as they work, offering any assistance needed.
Extensions/Differentiations:
There are no ELL or TAG students in this class.
This lesson inherently appeals to a wide variety of learning styles and/or difficulties as
differentiation takes place through different modalities (discussion, visual examples, reading,
writing and drawing).
Specifically, student 11 functions best when he can set up shop as his most comfortable work
space, so while students are working individually on their character descriptions, he will be
allowed to complete his work here with his bean bag and headphones. Moreover, the class as a
whole will be invited to find a space in the classroom that is most comfortable for them, that
allows them to do their best work. For example, they may choose to sit at the quite table in the
hall, on the rug, in the classroom beach chairs, etc.
For those students who may finish their work early, I will encourage them to find where they
might have already added or might be able to add alliteration to their everyday writing- to
reinforce the idea that alliteration can often be used to add meaning and excitement in literature.

Closure:
[5 minutes] I will gather the class on rug, asking them to bring their worksheets with them. I will
ask for volunteers to share their work, telling us some examples they found. I will let the students
know that they will soon be using their new knowledge of alliteration to write their own poems. I
will also let them know that alliteration is and can be used in other forms of writing, as well, and
encourage them to continue to use it when writing in their writers notebooks and to continue to
be on the look out for examples of alliteration in books they read.
Lesson Assessment
Evaluation of Student Learning:
I will know the students have an understanding of the definition of alliteration by
listening to their comments during whole class discussion, as well as through creating a class
definition. I will also look and listen to see if they identify and provide correct examples of
alliteration, based upon a correct understanding of the definition.
I will know students have correctly given examples of alliteration by collecting and
examining their worksheets.
During morning workshop, as students are selecting and reading books and searching for
examples of alliteration in this reading, Ill observe level of understanding and see what kind of
extra support students might need in order to continue in this unit, specifically, to be able to
create their own alliteration when the time comes.
Lesson Reflection
After having reviewed their pre-assessment scores, with a class average of under one
point out of a total of 6, I as feeling a lot of pressure going into this first lesson. I knew the class
as a whole had little to no understanding of alliteration- many of them had never heard the term
before the pre-assessment.
I began the lesson by informing the class that I knew alliteration was new for them, but
that I was going to read a book that might help them start to build a knowledge base. I did a lot
of research picking which picture book might be best to use for this lesson and If You Were
Alliteration by Trisha Speed Shaskan was the greatest choice I could have made. It really helped
the students to start to develop an understanding of alliteration by clearly stating the definition,
discussing ways in which it can be used and giving numerous examples. Many hands shot into
the air as I asked the class what they now knew about alliteration, including sharing in their own
words what they understood the definition to be. I had assumed that having the class discussion
like this, as well as writing down the definition we came up with together on chart paper, would
clarify for the class, but I still had a small number of students who werent quite understanding
yet.
Fortunately, I moved on to an activity that would provide more examples, which I hoped
would also help to solidify the concept. I had thought I would be able to get through all of the
students names, adding an alliterative verb for each, but there was no way; the class was
becoming antsy and ready to move off of the rug and on to morning workshop. I quickly changed

my plan to choose only 4, maybe 5, names out of the popsicle stick mug to use as examples. I
was nervous that this would encourage the rest of the class to tune out, but was happy to see that
the whole class was interested in helping to come up with ideas for the few names that were
used. Many students gave the simple one word verb example, but some were able to run with it
and continue with a whole sentence, which was really encouraging for me. This whole class
format allowed me to take note of those who were gaining a correct understanding, providing
accurate examples, as well as those who I might need to work with further. For example, I
noticed a number of students rhyming, more so using similar ending sounds, rather than the same
beginning sounds which is required of alliteration.
As the students moved on to work independently on their alliteration hunt worksheet, I
was further able to notice how many students were understanding what alliteration is. For those
that I noticed struggling or writing down incorrect examples, I took a moment to work with them
one-on-one, going over again the definition and helping them to find an example in their reading.
One challenge I came up against was finding a number of students looking for examples in very
obvious books, such as Dr. Suess and The Berenstein Bears, simply to get the work done as fast
as possible. I found I had to get the attention of the whole class and remind them that they were
to be taking notice of alliteration in their everyday reading, and that during morning workshop,
they are still to be focusing on finding good fit books, no matter the assignment.
This lesson went well overall, but it was a challenge to fit everything I had intended on
teaching in. I had touched on the reasons why a writer might use alliteration in his or her writing,
but not nearly as much as I would have liked because so much time was spent simply making
sure students understand what alliteration was. As we go forward to the remaining lessons, I
know many students will need further reinforcement of the definition of alliteration, as well as
the opportunity to work with examples of it before they will be able to create their own.

Alliteration Hunt!
Title of Book

Example of Alliteration

Look for examples of alliteration in your

everyday reading!