LITERARY TERMS Madalyn Gathright

4/5/11

ELA-1

What are literary terms?

Literary terms are words that someone might find in reading that are used to help better understand a topic or question.

10 Terms

•SETTING

•ANALOGY•CHARACTER

•ENTERTAIN

•FLASHBACK•INFER

•PLOT

•SEQUENCE

•Point of View

•STYLE

An analogy is a comparison of two things.

EX: The little girl’s hair was like gold.

ANALOGY

A character is a person or animal around which the action in the story occurs, which may or may not be animated.

EX: A classic character is Mickey Mouse.

CHARACTER

A type of story an author would write about to amuse a reader.

EX: An entertaining story that would amuse a reader today is Twilight. If you’re Team Jacob.

ENTERTAIN

A flashback is returning to an earlier time is a story to make something become clearer in the present.

EX: When Alice was a baby, she fell off the top of the slide. So now, she won’t even step foot on a playground.

FLASHBACK

To “read between the lines” and understand what the author really means.

EX: The little girl was crying about the kitten. You can infer that the little girl lost her kitten and is sad because of it.

INFER

The actions or events in a story.

EX: The three little pigs built houses; The big bad wolf came to town; He was hungry; He ate 2 pigs; the other was safe inside his brick house.

PLOT

The perspective in which the story is written.

EX: The perspective of Alice and Wonderland is by a third person, or a separate person from the characters.

Point of View

The order in which events happen in a story.

EX: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the Kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put humpty together again.

SEQUENCE

The time and place in which the story occurs.

EX: The time and place of Tom Sawyer is mid-summer in the 1900’s.

SETTING

The way the story in written.

The style of Twilight is a dramatic love story along with some mild humor.

STYLE

So, it’s good to have literary terms! Even though we don’t usually think so. They’re always present in our everyday life, especially in reading.