
No offense to Shakespeare and Dickens, but we took all of our examples from the best books out there today for young adults, the ones you’re actually reading 😉.ĭownload a definition of each term with our one-page summary sheet to use as a study guide! Then keep reading for explanations and examples of all 16 essential literary devices. Think you know your literary devices? Try our quiz and see how many you can correctly identify in context! They’re also the most useful literary devices to make your college application essays really ✨sparkle ✨. These are the ones that you’ll actually be expected to know on important exams or in your English classes. We’ve used our many years of experience teaching high school and college students to narrow down the list to the 16 most essential literary devices. How do you tell which ones you actually need to know? However, there are a lot of literary devices out there.


Knowing their literary devices has also helped our students achieve great scores on the SAT, ACT, and AP tests. Our students have used knowledge of these literary devices to write amazing college essays that helped get them into their dream schools.

If you’re a student in an English class, if you’re taking a test like the SAT or the ACT or the AP English Language or the AP English Literature exams, or if you’re writing college application essays, you’re going to need to know some literary devices! Bonus Material: Literary Devices Summary Sheet + Identification Quizĭo you know the difference between a simile and a metaphor? Can you spot personification when it’s being used out in the wild?
