| Term | Definition |
|---|
| simile | a comparison using like or as |
| metaphor | A comparison of two or more things not using like or as |
| hyperbole | Exaggeration or overstatement. |
| personification | Giving human-qualities to non-human things |
| irony | Something happens that was the opposite of what was expected. |
| bias | A judgment based on a personal point of view. |
| author's purpose | The author's intent either to inform or teach someone about something, to entertain people, or to persuade or convince their audience to do or not do something. |
| alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words. |
| allusion | An implied or indirect reference in literature to a familiar person, place or event. |
| autobiography | The story of a person's life written by himself or herself. |
| biography | The story of a person's life written by someone other than the subject of the work. |
| Cause and Effect | Cause statements stem from actions and events, and effects are what happen as a result of the action or event. |
| Characterization | The method an author uses to reveal characters and their various personalities. |
| Climax | the high point of suspense in a short story or novel. |
| compare | To find the similarities between two things. |
| conflict | The problem or struggle in a short story or novel. |
| context clues | Information from the reading that identifies a word or group of words. |
| contrast | To find differences between two things. |
| Dialogue | conversation between people in a literary work |
| Differentiate | Distinguish, tell apart and recognize differences between two or more items. |
| Editorials | A newspaper or magazine article that gives the opinions of the editors or publishers; an expression of opinion that resembles such an article. |
| Exaggeration | To make an overstatement or to stretch the truth. |
| Fiction | A story or novel that is not true; it is made up from the imagination. |
| Figurative Language | Language that cannot be taken literally since it was written to create a special effect or feeling. |
| First Person | A personal point of view using the "I" point of view. May also contain me, our, we, us. |
| Free Verse | Poetry that does not have meter or rhyme scheme. It sounds more like regular speech. |
| Generalization | A conclusion, drawn from specific information, that is used to make a broad statement about a topic or person. |
| Imagery | A word or group of words in a literary work which appeal to one or more of the senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell using figurative language. |
| Inference | understandings gained by "reading between the lines" |
| Informational Text | It is nonfiction, written primarily to convey factual information. (e.g., textbooks, newspapers, reports, directions, brochures, technical manuals, etc.). |
| Sarcasm | The use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or usual meaning |
| Limerick | A light or humorous verse form of five lines, of which lines 1, 2 and 5 rhymes and lines 3 and 4 rhyme. |
| Main Idea | The main idea is the author's central thought; the topic sentence of a paragraph. |
| Meter | The repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. |
| Mood | The emotion created in the reader |
| Narrative | Text that tells a story. It may contain dialogue. |
| Nonfiction | Writing that is true. |
| Onomatopoeia | The use of words whose sounds express or suggest their meaning (ex.: hiss, pop, bang) |
| Plot | The sequence in which the author arranges events in a story. The structure often includes the rising action, the climax, the falling action and the resolution. |
| Point of view | who tells the story (1st, 2nd, 3rd person) |
| Problem/Solution | An organizational structure in nonfiction texts, where the author typically presents a problem and possible solutions to it. |
| Compare/Contrast | An organizational structure in nonfiction texts, where the author typically finds the similarities and differences between two objects. |
| Sequence | An organizational structure in nonfiction texts, where the author typically shows an order of events in time order OR by using time order words (first, second, next, then). |
| Name-calling propaganda | an attack on a person instead of an issue. |
| bandwagon propaganda | attempts to persuade the reader to do, think or buy something because it is popular or because "everyone" is doing it |
| red herring propaganda | attempt to distract the reader with details not relevant to the argument |
| emotional appeal propaganda | attempt to persuade the reader by using words that appeal to the reader's emotions instead of to logic or reason. |
| testimonial propaganda | to persuade the reader by using a famous person to endorse a product or idea (for instance, the celebrity endorsement). |
| repetition propaganda | attempts to persuade the reader by repeating a message over and over again. |
| sweeping generalization (stereotyping) propaganda | makes an oversimplified statement about a group based on limited information. |
| circular argument propaganda | states a conclusion as part of the proof of the argument. |
| appeal to numbers, facts, or statistics propaganda | attempts to persuade the reader by showing how many people think something is true. |
| Resolution | The solution to the conflict of the story. |
| Rhyme | Identical or very similar recurring final sounds in words usually at the end of lines of a poem. |
| Rhythm | The pattern or beat of a poem. |
| Setting | The time and place in which a story unfolds. |
| Sonnet | A lyric poem of fourteen lines whose rhyme scheme is fixed. |
| Symbolism | A device in literature where an object represents an idea. |
| Theme | a major idea broad enough to cover the entire scope of a literary work. |
| Third Person | the "third person" point of view presents the events of the story from a narrator's point of view (he, she, it, they, them, their, her, his, or character's names are used) |
| Tone | The attitude of the author toward the audience and characters (e.g., serious or humorous). |
| propaganda | used to influence people to believe, buy, or do something. |
Combine with other sets
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