Journey North 40-Best Instructional Activities: Alliteration

Monarch Butterflies

Forty Best-practices Instructional Activities

Alliteration

Background: Alliteration is a descriptive writing strategy that uses a series of words that begin with the same letter/sound. Invite students to use alliterative phrases to create descriptive sentences about monarch butterflies.

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40 Best-practices
Instructional Activities

Procedure:
1. Use the A-Z Pre-writing Chart to help students brainstorm monarch-related words. Encourage students to read or revisit booklets and other Journey North reading selections to find words to include on the chart.

2. Using the words collected on the chart, students work with a partner to combine same-letter words to form alliterative phrases. Encourage students to think about how they can combine words to create meaningful phrases and sentences to describe monarch facts.

3. Challenge students to use the alliterative phrases to write and illustrate descriptive sentences or poems.

4. Create a class book with the poems and provide time for choral readings.

Example (Alliterative Poem)

On a morning in March
high in Mexico's mountainside sanctuaries
millions of monarchs
worn from winter
fly from fir trees
down dry dusty canyons
searching for water in seeps and streams.

A-Z Pre-writing Chart