Literary Terms You need to know all these terms BEFORE the State Reading Assessment

• A reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature.

• References to well-known characters, mythology, the Bible, or events.

•Do you know Steve Jobs from Apple?•Well, here is The Simpsons ALLUDING to the famous CEO of Apple

•Allusion

Bus: Bus Driver::

A. Courtroom: DefendantB. Principal: DeskC. Board: SurferD. Officer: Badge

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•Analogy—a partial similarity, as the computer is like the brain

• The character that opposes the heroine; villain

• Example• The Joker in Batman• The Wolf in The Three Little Pigs

•Antagonist

• A biography of a person narrated by himself/herself

•Autobiography

• To influence in a particular, typically unfair direction; prejudice; a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment. • Providing evidence for only one side of an issue.

•Bias

• The works or a list of the works referred to in a text or consulted by the author in its production

• Example• works cited OR reference page

•Bibliography

• The concept that an action or event will produce a certain response/result to the action in the form of another event (remember that this is a text structure).

• Ex. •Heavy rainfall (cause) •Mudslides or Floods (effect)

•Cause/Effect

• A person or animal represented in or acting in a story, drama, etc.

•Character

• A trite or overused expression; stereotyped expression. • It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milkbone

underwear.• Rub salt in his wounds

•Cliché

• The point of highest dramatic tension or a major turning point in the action (part of the plot diagram)

•Climax

QUIZ 1

• A literary technique of placing together like people, places, or ideas to show common or different features (a text structure).

•Compare/Contrast

• To understand a concept or reading selection.•Comprehension

• The last part of something; a result or outcome; the resolution

•Conclusion

• The opposition of persons or forces that gives rise to the dramatic action in a drama or fiction

•Man vs. Himself•Man vs. Man•Man vs. Nature•Man vs. Higher power

•Conflict

• The emotional association suggested by the primary meaning of a word or phrase that affects its interpretation and meaning

•Connotation

• Information from the text that helps the reader identify a word or word group

•Context Clues

• A point at which significant change occurs• Crisis/turning point

•Dictionary meaning; a direct specific meaning as distinct from an implied or associated idea

•Denotation

• A composition in writing or speech that gives a picture of a character or event (a text structure)

•Description

QUIZ 2

• A character marked by usually continuous and productive activity or change• This character changes his/her behavior or thinking

in the course of the novel.

•Dynamic Character

•One that serves as a pattern to be followed•Example

• Its purpose is to inform or relay information; a piece of writing that explains or informs.• Ex. Science textbook

•Expository Text

• The events of a dramatic or narrative plot following the climax (part of the plot diagram)

•Falling Action

• A technique of disrupting the chronology of a narrative by shifting to an earlier time in order to introduce information.

•Flashback

•One that represents a single (or very few traits) such as a loyal sidekick•Little or no details revealed

•Flat Character

• Able to express oneself readily and effortlessly•Fluency

• The technique of giving clues to coming events in a body of writing• The author gives hints about what is to come later in

the story.

•Foreshadowing

• An intentionally exaggerated figure of speech such as I have told you a million times.

•Hyperbole

• An expression that does not mean what it literally says.• “He put his foot in his mouth,” meaning that he said something embarrassing.

• Idiom

QUIZ 3

• A set of mental pictures or images; the use of figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas• Using the five senses to describe:

• Taste (gustatory)• Touch (tactile)• Hear (auditory)• Sight (visual)• Smell (olfactory)

• Imagery

• The act or process of deriving logical conclusion from premises known or assumed to be true.• An educated guess

• Inference

• The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning; incongruence• Example—a doctor who smokes• The difference between:

• Expectation and result• Appearance and reality

• Irony

• The quality or state of being unrelated to a matter being considered.

• Irrelevancy

• Speech or writing having unusual or pretentious vocabulary, convoluted phrasing, and vague meaning• Specific job-related language

• Ex. Doctor, Lawyer, Teacher, Mechanic

• Jargon

• The chief topic of a passage expressed or implied in a word or phrase

•Main Idea

• A figure of speech in which a word or phrase meaning one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a similarity between them.• A comparison of two unlike things in which one is said

to be the other.• Ex. He is a bull.

•Metaphor

• The Modern Language Association, a particular type of format for writing

•MLA

• The emotional state of mind expressed by an author or artist in his or her work.

•Mood

• A thought or feeling that makes a character or person act

•Motive

QUIZ 4

• Its purpose is to entertain in the form of a written story.• A story that is told or written.

• Examples•The Three Little Bears•Dumbo•Beauty and the Beast

•Narrative Text

•Using words that sound like their meaning such as purr, buzz, or hiss

•Onomatopoeia

• To state in too strong terms; exaggerate•Overstatement

• An apparently contradictory statement that suggests the truth, as life is but a dream; a self-contradictory, illogical statement, as include me out

•Paradox

• A single happening or group of happenings in a story that occur simultaneously with the main action of the story• Example— “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

•Parallel Episode

• A restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form

•Paraphrase

• The representation of ideas, animals, or objects as human beings by endowing them with human qualities•Giving human qualities to non-human things

• Ex. The chimney coughed a plume of black smoke.

•Personification

• Its purpose is to get the reader to think or act in a particular way.•Writing that seeks to convince the reader to adopt a particular opinion or perform a certain action• Ex. Commercials try to get you to vote a certain

way to buy a certain product.

•Persuasive text

• The act of stealing and passing off the ideas or words of another as one’s own; the use of another’s production without crediting the source

•Plagiarism

•PLOT!!!

• The standpoint from which the actions of a poem or story are related• 1st Person

• Told by a character in the story• Participates in the action

• 2nd Person• Use the pronoun “you”• Talking TO you

• 3rd Person Limited• “Reports” what happens• Does NOT participate in the action

• 3rd Person Omniscient• “All-Knowing”• Does NOT participate in the action

•Point of View

QUIZ 5

• An affix attached in front of a word that changes its meaning such as “re” in reprint

•Prefix

• Firsthand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic, an event, a person’s life, original works of literature, and historical facts

•Primary Source

• A writing style that identifies a problem and provides a workable solution (a text structure).

• Ex. •Too many teens are killed in car accidents (problem).•Raise the driving age (solution).

•Problem/Solution

•Writing that directly advocates a certain doctrine as the solution to some social or political problem• Persuasive in nature

•Propaganda

• The leading character in a work of fiction•Usually, but not always, the “hero”

•Protagonist

• Relation to the matter at hand; staying within a task or topic

•Relevancy

• The outcome or solution to the plot (part of the plot diagram)

•Resolution

• To state again in another way•Restatement

• The process in which a reader, having read a story, describes what happened in it

•Retell

• The part of a literary work that begins with the exposition and sets the stage for the climax (part of the plot diagram)

•Rising Action

QUIZ 6

• The basic part of a word that usually carries the main component of meaning

•Root

• A complex character displaying inconsistencies and internal conflicts• Round: Described in great detail

•Round Character

• A kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice• Example—Saturday Night Live

•Satire

• Published books or articles by an author who makes a personal interpretation about a topic based on primary sources

•Secondary Source

• The order of events or particular occurrences (a text structure)

•Sequence

• A figure of speech in which things different in kind or quality are compared by the use of the word like or as•Comparison of two unlike things using LIKE or AS

•Simile

•One that does not undergo important change in the course of the story• Static: This character stays the same throughout the novel.

•Static Character

• An author’s method of treating a character so that the character is immediately identified with a group. A character may be associated with a group through accent, food choices, style of dress, or any readily identifiable group characteristic.

•Stereotype

• An analysis of structure is an important aspect of explicating and understanding a work of fiction.

•Structural Analysis

• A subordinate plot in a play• A “side story” related to the main plot• It usually involves characters other than the

protagonist and antagonist

•Subplots

QUIZ 7:D

• An affix attached to a base or root rood, as –en added to ox to make oxen

•Suffix

• To cover the main points succinctly• To tell what happened in the story, leaving out the details

•Summarize

• Small pieces of information that one by one assist the reader in seeing the whole picture or concept. To use even the smallest or unimportant parts to tell the full story.

•Supporting Details

• The use, in literature, of objects, characters, and situations that represent something beyond themselves.

• Using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.

•Symbolism

•Graphic features of written material designed to assist the reader’s understanding of the text• Italics, sub-titles, graphs, diagrams, bullets, etc.

•Text Features

• The statement that must be proved, supported and/or defended in the body of a work.

•Thesis Statement

• The central idea developed in a work of fiction; underlying meaning of literary work• Forbidden love and class are themes in Titanic

•Theme

• A subject that people think, talk, and write about

•Topic

• The author’s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people/places/events in a work

• The attitude that the author takes toward the story or subject• Can be

• Serious• Humorous• Light• Funny• Dark• Mysterious

•Tone

QUIZ 8