Alliteration
the repetition of the same or very similar constant sounds in words that are close together.
Allusion
a reference to a statement, a person, a place of an event from literature, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports, or science.
Autobiography
the story of a real persons life, written or told by that person.
Biography
the story of a real persons life, written or told by another person.
Character
a person or an animal in a story, play, or other literary work.
Conflict
a struggle of clash between opposing characters or forces
External-a struggle between a character and some outside force.
internal- a struggle between opposing desires or emotions within a person.
Connotation
the feelings and associations that have come to be attached to a word.
denotation- dictionary definitions.
Description
the kind of writing that creates a clear image of something, usually by using details that appeal to one or more of the senses: Sight, Smell, Taste, and Touch.
Dialect
a way of speaking characteristic of a particular region or a particular group of people.
Dialogue
conversation between two or more characters.
Fable
a very brief story in pose of verse that teaches a moral or a practical lesson about how to succeed.
Fantasy
imaginative writing that carries the reader into an invented world where the laws of nature as we know them do not operate.
Figure of speech
a word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of something else and is not literally true.
Flashback
a scene that breaks the normal time order of the plot to a past event.
Folk tale
a story with no know author, originally passed on from on generation to another by word of mouth.
Foreshadowing
the use of clues or hints to suggest events that will occur later in the plot.
Free verse
poetry that is "free" of regular meter and rhyme scheme.
Imagery
language that appeals to the senses- sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
Irony
a contrast between what is expected and what really happens.
Legend
a story, usually based on some historical facts, that has been handed down from one generation to the next.
Limerick
a humorous five-line verse that has a regular meter and the rhyme scheme Abba.
Main idea
the most important idea expressed in a piece of writing.
Metaphor
a comparison between two unlike things in which one thing becomes another thing.
Mood
the overall emotion created by a work of literature.
Nonfiction
prose writing that deals with real people, events, and places without changing any facts.
Onomatopoeia
The use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning.
Personification
A special kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human.
Plot
the series of related events that make up a story.
Point of view
the vantage point from which a story is told.
Prose
any writing that is not poetry.
Rhyme
the repetition of accented vowel sounds all sounds following them.
Rhythm
a musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables or by the repetition of other osund patterns.
Setting
the time and place of a story, a poem, or a play.
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using a word such as like, as, than or resembles.
Speaker
the voice talking to us in a peom.
Stanza
in a poem, a group of lines that form a unit.
Symbol
a person, place, a thing, or an event that has its own meaning and stands for something beyond itself.
Tall tale
an exaggerated, fanciful story that gets "taller and taller", more and more far-fetched, the more it is told and retold.
Theme
an idea about life revealed in a work of literature.
Tone
the attitude a writer takes toward an audience, subject, or a character.