Literacy Note Cards
external conflict: see conflict
The girl typed her paper on her computer but then her computer crashed and the paper was lost is an example of external conflict.
drama: a drama or play is a form of literature meant to be performed by actors before an audience. In a drama, the characters' dialogue and actions tell the story. The written form of a play is known as a script.
The hit Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, is an example of a musical drama. In this popular play and movie, viewers are taken through the story of high school love between two teens who are completely opposite outside the love they share for each other.
plot: the sequence of related events that make up a story.
The king died, and then the queen died of grief' is a plot.
main idea: the most important point that a writer wishes to express.
The main idea is a sentence that provides the subject for discussion; it is the topic sentence. It is usually supported by a list of details.
stage directions: the instructions to the actors, director and stage crew in the script of a play.
The man deals a deck of cards' or 'Katy enters the room' are examples of stage directions.
cliché: a type of figurative language containing an overused expression or a saying that is no longer considered original.
"All that glitters is not gold."
questioning: the process of raising questions while reading in an effort to understand characters and events.
"Are you thirsty?" The answer is "Yes" or "No"; "Where do you live?" The answer is generally the name of your town or your address.
oxymoron: a form of figurative language combining contradictory words or ideas (ex. jumbo shrimp, bittersweet).
"Awfully good," "bittersweet," "same difference," and "original copy" are a few oxymoron examples.
blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter
"Blank verse" is a literary term that refers to poetry written in unrhymed but metered lines, almost always iambic pentameter.
folklore: traditions, customs and stories that are passed down within a culture. Folklore contains various types of literature such as legends, folktales, myths, and fables.
"Goldilocks and the Three Bears"a British story about a girl who breaks into the house of the three bears, tries everything out, and gets scared away.
narrative (na-RAH-tiv): any writing that tells a story. Most novels and short stories are placed into the categories of first-person and third-person narratives, which are based on who is telling the story and from what perspective.
"Goodbye to All That" by Joan Didion. ... "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. ... "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin. ... "My Life as an Heiress" by Nora Ephron. ... "Joy" by Zadie Smith.
understatement: a statement that is restrained in ironic contrast to what might have been said; the opposite of hyperbole. Understatement is usually used for a humorous effect.
"I did OK on that test." You scrape the entire side of your car.
dialogue (di-UH-log): The conversation between characters in a drama or narrative. A dialogue occurs in most works of literature.
"I don't want to go home," said Julia. "I like it here at the zoo. The animals are all so funny." She began to cry and then wailed, "I didn't even get to see the elephants!"
end or terminal rhymes: words that rhyme at the end of a verse-line.
"I look at the leaves / and think of past loves."
enjambment: in poetry, the running over of a line or thought into the next of verse
"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I / Did, till we loved?
stanza: a grouping of two or more lines within a poem. A stanza is comparable to a paragraph in prose. Some common stanza forms include:
"In the winter it's every kid's dream, / As snowflakes begin to appeal, / That suddenly there'll be a blizzard, / And they'll cancel school for the year"
epigram (ep-e-gram): a short poem or verse that seeks to ridicule a thought or event, usually with witticism or sarcasm.
"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." - Eleanor Roosevelt.
literal meaning: the actual meaning of a word or phrase.
"It was raining a lot, so I rode the bus."
exposition: introduces the characters and the conflicts they face.
"It's a story about two star-crossed lovers from Verona that commit suicide because they can't be together."
exposition: see plot
"It's a story about two star-crossed lovers from Verona that commit suicide because they can't be together."
analogy: a comparison of two or more like objects that suggests if they are alike in certain respects, they will probably be alike in other ways as well.
"Life is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you're gonna get." You can use metaphors and similes when creating an analogy.
first person point of view: see point of view
"My heart leaped into my throat as I turned and saw a frightening shadow."
ode: a lyric poem of some length, usually of serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal structure.
"Olympian Ode 1" by Pindar. "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" by William Wordsworth. "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. "Ode to the Confederate Dead" by Allen Tate. "The Progress of Poesy" by Thomas Gray. "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats.
folktale: a simple story that has been passed from generation to generation by word of mouth. Folktales are told primarily to entertain rather than to explain or teach a lesson.
"The White Elephant" - a folktale from Asia about how the kind white elephant is treated kindly.
imagery: the use of words and phrases that appeal to the five senses. Writers use sensory details to help readers imagine how things look, feel, smell, sound, and taste.
"The grass was green, and the flowers were red."
personification {PER-son-E-fih-ka-shEn): a figure of speech where animals, ideas or inanimate objects are given human characteristics.
"The sun smiled down on us."
opinion: see fact and opinion
"United States of America was involved in the Vietnam War," versus "United States of America was right to get involved in the Vietnam War"
cliché: a type of figurative language containing an overused expression or a saying that is no longer considered original.
"With experience comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes experience" is not true for everyone's life. "It's better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all" is a common cliché.
slant rhyme (slänt rime) is also known as near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme, oblique rhyme, or pararhyme. A distinctive system or pattern of metrical structure and verse composition in which two words have only their final consonant sounds and no preceding vowel or consonant sounds in common. Instead of perfect or identical sounds or rhyme, it is the repetition of near or similar sounds or the pairing of accented and unaccented sounds that if both were accented would be perfect rhymes (stopped and wept, parable and shell). Alliteration, assonance, and consonance are accepted as slant rhyme due to their usage of sound combinations (spilled and spoiled, chitter and chatter).
"Worm" and "swarm" are examples of slant rhymes.
extended metaphor: a figure of speech that compares two essentially unlike things in great length.
"You're a snake! Everything you hiss out of your mouth is a lie. You frighten children, and you have no spine."
iambic pentameter: see meter
"da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM."
motif (moh-TEEF): a recurring object, concept, or structure in a work of literature. A motif may also be two contrasting elements in a work, such as good and evil. A motif is important because it allows one to see main points and themes that the author is trying to express, in order that one might be able to interpret the work more accurately.
"death" could be a motif in a literary work. An author would not necessarily have to use the word "death" to express the motif.
refrain repetition in the literature of one or more lines at regular intervals; sometimes called the chorus.
"jump back, honey, jump back" in Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "A Negro Love Song" or "return and return again" in James Laughlin's "O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again."
sarcasm: the use of praise to mock someone or something; the use of mockery or verbal irony
"they're really on top of things" to describe a group of people who are very disorganized is using sarcasm.
repetition: a technique in which a sound, word, phrase, or line is repeated for effect or emphasis.
'I have to practice my times tables over so I can learn them'
rhyme scheme: the pattern of end rhyme used in a poem, generally indicated by matching lowercase letters to show which lines rhyme. The letter "a" notes the first line, and all other lines rhyming with the first line. The first line that does not rhyme with the first, or "a" line, and all others that rhyme with this line, is noted by the letter "b", and so on. The rhyme scheme may follow a fixed pattern (as in a sonnet) or may be arranged freely according to the poet's requirements.
, a four-line poem in which the first line rhymes with the third line, and the second line rhymes with the fourth line has the rhyme scheme ABAB
generalization: a broad statement about an entire group.
- All birds have wings. - Many children eat cereal for breakfast
spondee
/ /
trochee
/ X
dactyl
/ X X
second person point of view: refers to the use of "you" in explanations or arguments. It is not frequently used, but is appropriate in certain circumstances. Most second person points of view occur within instructions that are meant to be followed.
1st person: "I am an invisible man." 2nd person: "You are an invisible man."
Dimeter
2 feet per line
dialect: a form of language that is spoken in a particular place or by a particular group of people.
A Northern American might say, "hello." A Southern American might say, "howdy."
chorus: see refrain
A chorus is a piece of music written to be sung by a large group of people
subplot: see plot
A classic example would be a villain capturing a love interest, the protagonist further motivated to defeat this villain as the stakes have become personal
couplet (KUP-let): a rhymed pair of lines in a poem. One of William Shakespeare's trademarks was to end a sonnet with a couplet, as in the poem "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day": So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long as lives this, and this gives life to thee.
A couplet is two lines of poetry that usually rhyme. Here's a famous couplet: "Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow / That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
paraphrasing: the restatement of a text by readers in their own words or in another form.
A giraffe can eat up to 75 pounds of Acacia leaves and hay every day
hero or heroine: see character
A good example is Anna Karenina, the lead character in the novel of the same title by Leo Tolstoy.
resolution or denouement: occurs after the climax and is where conflicts are resolved and loose ends are tied up.
A great example of explicit denouement is the ending of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
connecting: a reader's process of relating the content of a literary work to his or her own knowledge and experience.
A hallway connects the two rooms. It's the major highway connecting the two towns.
fable: a brief tale that teaches a lesson about human nature. Fables often feature animals as characters.
A lion catches a mouse, who begs to be let go. The mouse promises to repay the lion in exchange for his life. The lion agrees and lets the mouse go.
realistic fiction: imaginative writing set in the real, modern world. The characters act like real people who use ordinary human abilities to cope with problems and conflicts typical of modern life.
A popular example from the realistic fiction genre would be The Fault in our Stars by John Green
speaker: the voice that talks to the reader in a poem, as the narrator does in a work of fiction. The speaker in the poem is not necessarily the poet.
A speaker is someone who delivers a speech
audience: the particular group of readers or viewers that the writer is addressing. A writer considers his or her audience when deciding on a subject, a purpose for writing and the tone and style in which to write.
A target audience is a group of consumers characterized by behavior and specific demographics
third person limited or third person objective: the person telling the story is not one of the characters in the story. He or she is an outside observer. The reader can only know what one character learns through interaction with other characters or through overheard conversations. The narrator cannot supply the thoughts or feelings of other characters in the story.
A well-known example of third-person objective is the short story "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
static character: see character
Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Romeo Montague in Romeo and Juliet.
predicting: the process of gathering information and combining it with the reader's own knowledge to guess what might occur in the story.
All the local forecasters are predicting rain for this afternoon. She claims that she can predict future events. It's hard to predict how the election will turn out.
act: a major unit of action in a drama or play. Each act can be further divided into smaller sections called scenes.
An act is the traditional way playwrights break up the action of a play. The number of acts in a play varies. You'll usually find five acts in plays by Big Willy Shakespeare, while modern playwrights use any number of acts.
author's purpose: an author's purpose is his or her reason for creating a particular work. The purpose can be to entertain, explain or inform, express an opinion, or to persuade.
An author's purpose in communicating could be to instruct, persuade, inform, entertain, educate, startle, excite, sadden, enlighten, punish, console
author: the writer of a book, article or other text.
An author, according to common sense, is one who writes, such as William Shakespeare
figurative language or figure of speech: expressions that are not literally true. see simile, metaphor, hyperbole, understatement, irony, oxymoron, cliché, metonymy
An example of a popular metaphor is "Time is money."
urban legend: a contemporary story that is told in many rumored versions that have little basis in fact
An urban legend is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family member, often with horrifying, humorous, or cautionary elements.
mood: a mood or atmosphere is the feeling that a literary work conveys to readers. Mood is created through the use of plot, character, the author's descriptions, etc.
Anxious, Calm. Cheerful, Joyful, Light-hearted. Lonely, Melancholic, Ominous, Optimistic, Panicked, Peaceful, Pensive, Pessimistic, Reflective, Restless
caesura: a pause or a sudden break in a line of poetry
Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us || - don't tell! They'd banish || - you know! Stand in the desert
simile (sim-EH-lee): a simile is a type of figurative language that makes a comparison between two otherwise unlike objects or ideas by connecting them with the words "like" or "as."
As slow as a sloth. As busy as a bee. As innocent as a lamb. As proud as a peacock. As fast as a cheetah. As blind as a bat. As bold as brass. As cold as ice.
idiom: a phrase or expression that means something different from what the words actually say (for example, using the phrase "over his head" instead of "He doesn't understand").
Better late than never, Bite the bullet
comedy: a dramatic work that is light and often humorous in tone and usually ends happily with a peaceful resolution of the main conflict.
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter
rhyme (rime): repetition of an identical or similarly accented sound or sounds in a work. Rhyme gives poems flow and rhythm, helping the lyricist tell a story and convey a mood.
Cat - Sat - Bat. Ball - Fall - Tall. Right - Kite - Height. Owl - Towel - Growl. Bore - Four - Roar. Rock - Chalk - Hawk. One - Gun - Won. Face - Place - Race.
assonance: repetition of vowel sounds within a line of poetry.
Chips and dips (Repetition of the /i/ vowel sound) Surf and turf (Repetition of the /u/ vowel sound) Go slow over the road (Repetition of the short /o/ vowel sound) Do good have good (Repetition of the /oo/ vowel sound) No pain, no gain (Repetition of the /ai/ vowel sound)
irony of situation: the difference between what is expected to happen and the way events actually work out.
Craiker. Irony occurs when something that is said or the expected outcome of a situation is different from what actually happens. It's a rhetorical and literary device that comes in several formats
moral: a lesson that a story teaches. A moral is often stated directly at the end of a fable.
Don't kill. Speak the truth. Be careful with what you say and do to others.
genre (ZHAHN-ruh): a type or category of literature. The four main literary genres include: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
Drama. Stories composed in verse or prose, usually for theatrical performance, where conflicts and emotion are expressed through dialogue and action. Fable. Fairy Tale. Fantasy. Fiction. Fiction in Verse. Folklore. Historical Fiction.
alliteration (a-LIT-uh-RAY-shuhn): the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words (tongue twisters)
Example: Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled peppers
anecdote: a brief account of an interesting incident or event that usually is intended to entertain or to make a point.
Example: if a group of coworkers are discussing pets, and one coworker tells a story about how her cat comes downstairs at only a certain time of the night, then that one coworker has just told an anecdote.
horror fiction: fiction that contains mysterious and often supernatural events to create a sense of terror.
Examples include novels like Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
sequence: the order in which events occur or in which ideas are presented.
For example, 3, 7, 11, 15, is a sequence as there is a pattern where each term is obtained by adding 4 to its previous term.
stereotype: a broad generalization or an oversimplified view that disregards individual differences.
Girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks. Boys should be directed to like blue and green; girls toward red and pink. Boys should not wear dresses or other clothes typically associated with "girl's clothes"
historical fiction: fiction that explores a past time period and may contain references to actual people and events of the past.
Gone with the Wind - The story is set in the Confederate States of America during the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
aside: an actor's speech, directed to the audience, that is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. An aside is used to let the audience know what a character is about to do or what he or she is thinking.
He elbowed people aside as he moved through the crowd. He took her aside to speak to her privately. Someone grabbed him and pulled him aside. Noun She made a joke about the food in a muttered aside to her husband.
evaluating: the process of judging the value of something or someone. A work of literature can be evaluated in terms of such criteria as entertainment, believability, originality, and emotional power.
He stopped to evaluate the gilded ornaments. Evaluate the run-out below the rapid for ease in rescue efforts. We first evaluate a number of compression algorithms for use in the driver. We need to evaluate those theories both for conceptual coherence and for evidence.
perspective: see point of view
Her attitude lends a fresh perspective to the subject.
myth (mith): a traditional story that attempts to explain how the world was created or why the world is the way that it is. Myths are stories that are passed on from generation to generation and are of unknown authorship. Also see folklore.
Hercules and the Lion (Ancient Greece) The Birth of Horus (Ancient Egypt) The Children of Lir (Ireland) Valmiki's Curse (India) Thor's Hammer (Scandinavia) Theseus and the Minotaur (Ancient Greece) Isis and Osiris (Ancient Egypt)
nonfiction: is prose writing that presents and explains ideas or that tells about real people, places, objects or events. Some examples of nonfiction include autobiographies, newspaper articles, biographies, essays, etc.
History. Biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Travel guides and travelogues. Academic texts. Philosophy and insight. Journalism. Self-help and instruction. Guides and how-to manuals.
memoir: a specific type of autobiography; like autobiography, a memoir is about the author's personal experiences. However, a memoir does not necessarily cover the author's entire life.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Walden by Henry David Thoreau.
exaggeration: see hyperbole
I am so hungry I could eat a horse. This ice cream is out of this world. I'm in so much trouble, my Dad is going to kill me.
cause and effect: two events are related as cause and effect when one event brings about or causes the other. The event that happens first is the cause; the one that follows is the effect.
I ate tons of junk food, so now I feel sick. I feel sick because I ate tons of junk food.
first person point of view: the person telling the story is one of the characters in the story. It is the "I" point of view. It is the most limited among the types because the narrator can only state what he or she sees, feels, and hears. He or she cannot go into the minds of the other characters.
I clearly remember the day he walked into my life, and my world changed from that moment on.
sonnet (sonn-IT): a sonnet is a distinctive poetic style that uses a system or pattern of metrical structure and verse composition usually consisting of fourteen lines, arranged in a set rhyme scheme or pattern. There are two main styles of sonnet, the Italian sonnet and the English sonnet.
I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
internal rhyme: rhyme found within a line of poetry (alliteration, assonance, and consonance).
I went to town to buy a gown. / I took the car, and it wasn't far.
narrator: one who tells a story; the speaker or the "voice" of an oral or written work. The narrator is not usually the same person as the author. The narrator is the direct window into a piece of work. Who the author chooses to narrate establishes the point of view in the story.
I'm going to share a story with you. It's not an easy one to witness, for it's about one of the worst things that ever happened to me.
hyperbole (hi-per-bo-lee): a figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis or humorous effect.
I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse. My feet are killing me. That plane ride took forever. This is the best book ever written. I love you to the moon and back. The pen is mightier than the sword. I've told you this 20,000 times. Cry me a river.
dramatic irony: occurs when facts are not known to the characters in a work of literature but are known by the audience.
If you're watching a movie about the Titanic and a character leaning on the balcony right before the ship hits the iceberg says, "It's so beautiful I could just die,"
suspense: a feeling of growing tension and excitement. Writers create suspense by raising questions in readers' minds about what might happen.
In "Dawn of the Dead," a group of survivors is trapped in a shopping mall, and they must fight off hordes of zombies. The suspense builds as the characters get closer and closer to being killed.
cosmic irony: suggests that some unknown force brings about dire and dreadful events.
In Pulp Fiction, Jules assumes that "God stopped the bullets" when he and Vincent are shot at and live.
climax: the turning point, point of maximum interest, and highest tension in the plot of a story, play, or film. The climax usually occurs towards the end of story after the reader has understood the conflict and become emotionally involved with the characters. At the climax, the conflict is resolved, and the outcome of the plot becomes clear.
In Romeo and Juliet, the climax is often recognized as being the moment when Romeo kills Tybalt.
soliloquy: a speech delivered by a character who is alone on the stage.
In Shakespeare's plays, for example, there are many speeches that begin with a character saying something like "Now I am alone."
falling action: see plot
In a story, falling action occurs after the turning point of the climax, and signifies that the story's main conflict is coming to a close.
epiphany: a sudden moment of understanding that causes a character to change or to act in a certain way.
In the middle of a typical argument with his wife, a man realizes he has been the one causing every single argument, and that in order to keep his marriage, he must stop being such an aggressive person.
ballad: is a poem that tells a story and is meant to be sung or recited.
John Keats's "La Belle Dame sans Merci," Thomas Hardy's "During Wind and Rain," and Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee."
metaphor (met-AH-for): a type of figurative language in which a comparison is made between two things that are essentially unalike but may have one quality in common. Unlike a simile, a metaphor does not contain an explicit word of comparison, such as "like" or "as".
Life is a highway. Her eyes were diamonds. He is a shining star. The snow is a white blanket.
protagonist (pro-TAG-eh-nist) see character
Luke Skywalker wants to bring balance to the force. The antagonist: Darth Vader wants Luke to turn to the dark side.
foil: see character
Mercutio is a foil to both Romeo and Tybalt
short story: brief work of fiction that generally focuses on one or two main characters who face a single problem or conflict.
One famous example of a short story is Anton Chekhov's "Gooseberries" written in 1898
consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds anywhere within a line of poetry. Alliteration is a specific type of consonance.
Paddy's potatoes were prepared to perfection, is an example of consonance.
minor character: see character
People they pass on the street, doormen, package carriers, partygoers, coworkers, and classmates with no major role in the story, and so on.
unreliable narrator: see narrative
Pi Patel, the narrator of Yann Martel's Life of Pi.
motivation: the reason why a character acts, feels or thinks in a certain way.
Playing sports because you enjoy them. Improving your diet and fitness to feel healthier. Helping someone with no expectation of reward. Donating to a charity or cause you believe in.
parody: a literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author's work for comic effect or ridicule.
Pride and Prejudice With Zombies is a parody of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
epitaph: a short poem or verse written in memory of someone
Rest in Peace. In Loving Memory. Until We Meet Again. A Life Measured in Memories.
dramatic monologue (dra-MA-tik mon'-O-lôg): a literary device that is used when a character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings, those that are hidden throughout the course of the story line, through a poem or a speech. This speech, where only one character speaks, is recited while other characters are present onstage. This monologue often comes during a climactic moment in a work and often reveals hidden truths about a character, their history and their relationships. elegy (EL-e-je): a type of literature defined as a song or poem that expresses sorrow or lamentation, usually for one who has died.
Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J.
play: see drama
Running, jumping, climbing, swimming and other types of physical activity undertaken for enjoyment.
parallelism: the use of similar grammatical constructions to express ideas that are related or equal in importance. For example: The sun rises. The sun sets.
She aspires to finish college and become an accountant.
oral history: stories of people's lives related by word of mouth. These histories usually include both factual material and personal reactions.
Slide backgroundOral history interviews, photos, newspapers, and other primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration through redress with a strong focus on the World War II mass incarceration.
science fiction: prose writing in which a writer explores unexpected possibilities of the past or the future by using scientific data and theories as well as his or her imagination.
Star Trek is an undisputed classic of the genre. Doctor Who, Firefly, Lost in Space, Stargate
interview: a meeting in which one person asks another about personal matters, professional matters or both.
Tell me something about yourself. How did you hear about this position? Why do you want to work here? Why did you decide to apply for this position? What is your greatest strength? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you know about this company/organization?
secondary source: a secondary source presents information compiled from or based on other sources.
Textbooks, edited works, books and articles that interpret or review research works, histories, biographies, literary criticism and interpretation, reviews of law and legislation, political analyses and commentaries.
biography: the story of a person's life that is written by someone else.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
summarizing: the process of briefly recounting the main ideas of a piece of writing in a person's own words, while omitting unimportant details.
The act of summarizing is much like stating the plot of a play.
haiku: a traditional form of Japanese poetry, usually dealing with nature. A haiku has three lines and describes a single moment, feeling or thing. The first and third lines contain five syllables and the second line contains seven syllables.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. Describing the Paris Underground, "In a Station of the Metro" is often considered the first haiku written in English, though it does not follow the 5/7/5 structure.
voice: an author or narrator's distinctive style or manner of expression. Voice can reveal much about the author or narrator's personality.
The dog bit the postman.
setting (set-ting): the time, place, physical details, and circumstances in which a story occurs. Settings include the background, atmosphere or environment in which characters live and move, and usually include physical characteristics of the surroundings.
The environment includes geographical location such as beach or mountains, the climate and weather, and the social or cultural aspects such as a school, theatre, meeting, club, etc
context clues: hints or suggestions that may surround unfamiliar words or phrases and clarify their meaning.
The man's obesity, or too much fat, caused much worry for the doctor. This sentence actually tells the reader that obesity means too much fat.
style: how a writer says something; many elements contribute to style, including word choice, sentence length, tone and figurative language
The most common types of styles are expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative.
rhythm (see also meter): refers to the pattern of flow of sounds created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. The accented or stressed syllables are marked with: stressed or accented syllables: / unstressed or unaccented syllables: X or U
The pattern or flow of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in accentual verse or of long and short syllables in quantitative verse.
clarifying: the reader's process of pausing occasionally while reading to quickly review what he or she understands. By clarifying as they read, good readers are able to draw conclusions about what is suggested but not stated directly.
The president was forced to clarify his position on the issue. The committee clarified the manager's duties.
meter: the regular pattern of accented and unaccented syllables. Although all poems have rhythm, not all poems have regular meter. Each unit of meter is known as a foot. The conventional symbols used to identify accented and unaccented syllables are: "/" to indicate an accented syllable; and an "X" or a small symbol shaped like a "U" to indicate an unaccented symbol. The metrical foot is the basic unit of meter. The most common metrical feet and their patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables are as follows:
The regular pattern of accented and unaccented syllables. Although all poems have rhythm not all poems have regular meter. Each unit is known as a foot. The conventional symbols used to identify accented and unaccented syllables are: "/" to indicate an accented syllable; and an "X" or a small symbol shaped like a "U" to indicate an unaccented symbol
speech: a talk given in public.
The speaker in a piece of poetry might be the poet, an imagined character, a creature or even an object.
resolution: see plot
The team happily celebrated their victory after a challenging face-off with their rival.
point of view: perspective from which a story is told. Understanding the point of view used in a work is critical to understanding literature; it serves as the instrument to relay the events of a story, and in some instances the feelings and motives of the character(s).
There are three main types of point of view: first-person, second-person, and third-person. Read on to learn more about choosing point of view in writing.
limerick: a short humorous poem composed of five lines that usually has the rhyme scheme aabba, created by two rhyming couplets followed by a fifth line that rhymes with the first couplet. A limerick typically has a sing-song rhythm.
There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!
primary source: a first hand account of an event; primary sources include: diaries, journals, letters, speeches, news stories, photographs, and pieces of art.
Theses, dissertations, scholarly journal articles (research based), some government reports, symposia and conference proceedings, original artwork, poems, photographs, speeches, letters, memos, personal narratives, diaries, interviews, autobiographies, and correspondence.
heroic couplet or closed couplet: a couplet consisting of two successive rhyming lines that contain a complete thought.
This quote from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116" is a great example of a rhymed, closed, iambic pentameter couplet.
fiction: prose writing that tells an imaginary story. Fiction includes both short stories and novels.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, 1984 by George Orwell and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
trait: see characterization.
Traits can be qualitative (such as eye color) or quantitative (such as height or blood pressure).
conflict: the tension or problem in the story; a struggle between opposing forces. Terms Associated With Conflict:
Wars. War is one of the most extreme examples of conflict. Wars can disrupt the lives of millions of people and lead to death on a large scale
scene: a section in a play presenting events that occur in one place at one time.
We won't go anywhere near the crime scene; ever.
tall tale: a humorously exaggerated story about impossible events.
When I went fishing, I caught a fish as big as my arm! Sorry I'm late, traffic was backed up all the way to my driveway. My girlfriend's a supermodel, but you don't know her; she goes to a different school.
third person omniscient: the narrator is not a character in the story, but the events in the story are seen through the eyes of more than one of the characters. The narrator is considered to be "all knowing" and cannot only see and hear everything that is happening to all characters in the story, but can also enter their minds and tell the reader what each is thinking and feeling. This is the least limited point of view because the narrator has knowledge of all the characters.
When you read "As the campers settled into their tents, Zara hoped her eyes did not betray her fear, and Lisa silently wished for the night to quickly end"
free verse: poetry without regular patterns of rhyme and rhythm. Often used to capture the sounds and rhythms of ordinary speech.
William Carlos Williams's short poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" is written in free verse.
poetry: a type of literature in which ideas and feelings are expressed in compact, imaginative, and often musical language. Poets arrange words in ways designed to touch readers' senses, emotions, and minds. Most poems are written in lines that may contain patterns of rhyme and rhythm. These lines may in turn be grouped in stanzas. See narrative, epic, ballad, lyric, haiku, limerick and concrete poetry.
William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow" T. S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"
fantasy: a work of literature that contains at least one fantastic or unreal element.
William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and T.H. White's The Once and Future King.
pyrrhic
X X
anapest
X X /
internal conflict: see conflict
a character may struggle with a fear of heights, a desire for power, or a need to live up to someone's expectations.
comparison: the process of identifying similarities.
a consideration or estimate of the similarities or dissimilarities between two things or people. such as "She's a lot more intelligent than him." "This car is much faster than the other one."
foreshadowing: when the writer provides clues or hints that suggest or predict future event in a story.
a crow is often an omen of death, thus, the appearance of a crow could foreshadow a character's demise.
subplot: an additional minor plot that involves a secondary conflict in the story; the subplot may or may not affect the main plot.
a villain capturing a love interest, the protagonist further motivated to defeat this villain as the stakes have become personal
inciting incident: occurs after the exposition and introduces the central conflict within the story.
a wife leaving her husband, a man enlisting in the Marines, a dentist molesting a patient he's put under anesthesia.
allegory: a story in which people, things, and actions represent an idea about life; allegories often have a strong moral or lesson.
allegory, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. On its surface, Animal Farm is a story about farm animals that rebel against their farmer.
allusion (a-LOO-zhuhn): a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known characters or events.
allusion example: "Chocolate cake is my Achilles heel." The allusion here is to "Achilles' heel," or the Greek myth about the hero Achilles and how his heel was his one weakness. In this case, the speaker's "weakness" is chocolate cake.
foot: a unit of meter within a line of poetry
amuse, portray, and return. Trochees have two syllables in the opposite order: stressed then unstressed. Words like happy, clever, and planet are trochees. Spondees are feet with two stressed syllables, as in heartbreak, shortcake, and bathrobe.
autobiography: a form of nonfiction in which a person tells the story of his or her life.
an account of a person's life written by that person. For example, Mahatma Gandhi's My Experiments with Truth.
contrast: the process of pointing out differences between things.
black is the opposite of white, and so there's a contrast between black ink and white paper.
metonymy: the metaphorical substitution of one word or phrase for another related word or phrase. Example: "The pen is mightier than the sword." The word "pen" is used in place of "words" and the word "sword" is used to represent the idea of fighting or war.
calling your car your "ride" or declaring that lobster mac and cheese is your favorite "dish".
author presents to the reader about life or human nature. Generally, a theme has to be extracted as the reader explores the passages of a work. The author utilizes the characters, plot, and other literary devices to assist the reader in this endeavor. The author often intertwines the theme throughout the work, and the full impact is slowly realized as the reader processes the text. The ability to recognize a theme is important because it allows the reader to understand part of the author's purpose in writing the book.
courage, death, friendship, revenge, and love
denotation (DEE-no-TAE-shuhn) is the opposite of connotation in that it is the exact or dictionary meaning of a word.
for example the term hot, the denotation of hot is having or giving off heat.
symbolism: using something specific to stand for something else, especially an idea. A symbol is a person, place, object or action that for something beyond itself. For example, a dove may represent peace. The dove can be seen and peace cannot.
for example, passion, or love, or devotion.
persuasion: persuasive writing is meant to sway readers' feelings, beliefs, or actions. Persuasion normally appeals to both the mind and the emotions of readers.
good salespeople use persuasion to get people to buy things, just as children use persuasion to get permission to do certain things.
satire: a literary technique in which ideas or customs are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society.
hey're all examples of satire. Satire offers political and social commentary, using exaggeration, irony, humor, allegory, and more to make a point.
fact and opinion: a fact is a statement that can be proved. An opinion, in contrast, is a statement that reflects the writer's or speaker's belief, but which cannot be supported by proof or evidence.
iPhones are better than Android phones. Fact: George Washington was the first president of the United States.
irony (i-RAH-nee): a contrast between what is expected and what actually exists or happens. Irony spices up a literary work by adding unexpected twists and allowing the reader to become more involved with the characters and plot.
if it were a cold, rainy gray day, you might say, "What a beautiful day!" Or, alternatively, if you were suffering from a bad bout of food poisoning, you might say, "Wow, I feel great today."
verbal irony: occurs when the speaker means something totally different than what he or she is saying and often times the opposite of what a character is saying is true.
if person A touches person B's hair, person A may say "I love when you do that." If context tells us they mean the opposite, then we can say they were being verbally ironic
drawing conclusions: combining several pieces of information to make an inference is called drawing a conclusion.
if you are at the store and see an elderly person staring at an item that is high on a shelf, you may infer that this person wants that item.
inference: is a logical guess based on evidence based on evidence in the text.
if you notice someone making a disgusted face after they've taken a bite of their lunch, you can infer that they do not like it.
falling action: see plot
in a hero tale, the hero's journey home after defeating the villain would be the falling action.
falling action: the end of the central conflict in a story, when the action starts to wind down.
in a hero tale, the hero's journey home after defeating the villain would be the falling action.
tone: the writer's attitude or feeling about his or her subject.
joyful, serious, humorous, sad, threatening, formal, informal, pessimistic, or optimistic.
character: a person who is responsible for the thoughts and actions within a story, poem, or other literature. Characters are extremely important because they are the medium through which a reader interacts with a piece of literature. Every character has his or her own personality, which a creative author uses to assist in forming the plot of a story or creating a mood.
loyal. generous. kind. sincere. persistent. open-minded. brave. quiet.
prose: the ordinary form of spoken and written language; that is, language that lacks the special features of poetry. Examples of prose include: essays, stories, articles, speeches, etc.
most human conversation, textbooks, lectures, novels, short stories, fairy tales, newspaper articles, and essays.
eye rhymes: are words that when written appear to rhyme, but when spoken do not (ex: dog/fog, cough/enough/bough, etc).
move and love, bough and though, come and home, and laughter and daughter
Monometer
one foot per line
epic: a long narrative poem about the adventures of a hero whose actions reflect the ideals and values of a nation or group.
one of the first known examples of epic literature is the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story about a king descended from gods, from ancient Mesopotamia.
sensory details: words and phrases that help readers see, hear, taste, feel, or smell what an author is describing.
rather than saying "She drank the lemonade," say: "She felt her tongue tingle as she sipped the frosty glass of tart, sugary lemonade."
story mapping: a visual organizer that helps a reader understand a work of literature by tracking setting, characters, events and conflicts.
search items for sale, view items by category, put items into a shopping cart, and complete a purchase.
propaganda: text that uses false or misleading information to present a slanted point of view.
staging an atomic "test" or the public torture of a criminal for its presumable deterrent effect on others
essay: a short work of nonfiction that deals with a single subject.
supports, develops, and defends its thesis in a series of paragraphs, each of which typically illustrates one way in which the thesis statement can be supported.
chronological order: the order in which events happen in time.
the arrangement of events based on the time they occurred.
denouement (day-noo-mon)
the denouement of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet comes just after Romeo and Juliet take their own lives.
legend: a story handed down from the past about a specific person, usually someone of heroic accomplishments.
the killer in the mirror, Bloody Mary. the creepy, faceless Slender Man. the dinosaur-like Loch Ness monster. the hairy, white yeti. the fiendish Mothman. the gigantic sea monster the Kraken. the Headless Mongolian Death Worm.
rising action: following the introduction of the central conflict; complications arise as the characters struggle with the conflict.
the protagonist going on a journey to solve a mystery or crime.
rising action: see plot
the rising action could be the protagonist going on a journey to solve a mystery or crime
paradox: a statement that seems to contradict itself but is, nevertheless, true.
the statement "I am not lying" is a paradox because it means one cannot be telling the truth while saying they are not lying.
sound devices: see alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhyme, and rhythm. speaker: the voice that talks to the reader in a poem, as the narrator does in a work of fiction. The speaker in the poem is not necessarily the poet.
the tongue twister "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" contains consonance with its repeated p sounds.
synecdoche: a literary technique in which the whole is represented by naming one of its parts (genus named for species), or vice versa (species named for genus). Example: "You've got to come take a look at my new set of wheels." The vehicle here is represented by its parts, or wheels.
the word hand in "offer your hand in marriage"; mouths in "hungry mouths to feed"; and wheels referring to a car.
humor: the quality that provokes laughter or amusement. Writers create humor through exaggeration, sarcasm, amusing descriptions, irony, and witty dialogue.
they are amusing, especially in a clever or witty way
scanning: the process of searching through writing for a particular fact or piece of information.
when we are searching for a telephone number in a directory, we scan the page for the name of the specific person we are looking for.
lyric (LEER-ick) poetry: a song-like poem written mainly to express the feelings or emotions of a single speaker. main character: see character
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking
onomatopoeia: the use of words whose sound suggest their meaning (ex. buzz, bang, hiss).
words boing, gargle, clap, zap, and pitter-patter.
iamb
x/
