- alice walker wrote:: everyday use
- amy tan wrote:: two kinds
- charlotte perkins gilman wrote:: the yellow wallpaper
- david sedaris wrote:: naked
- emily dickinson wrote:: i could not stop for death
- epiphany: a sudden realization; the "ah-ha!" moment
- gabriel garcia marquez wrote:: a very old man with enormous wings
- imagery: literary references to sensory impressions.
- jamaica kinkaid wrote:: girl
- james joyce wrote:: araby
- jane austen wrote:: pride & prejudice
- john updike wrote:: a&p
- langston hughes wrote:: a mother to her son, poet to bigot
- magical realism: in which magical elements appear in realistic settings
- margaret atwood wrote:: happy endings
- margaret edson wrote:: wit
- meta-theatrical/meta-fiction: things within a text that draw you into the convention, like a play within a play (example: Bottom's play in Midsummer Night's Dream)
- metaphor: comparison using "is."
- metaphysical poetry: example: John Donne. 17th Century poets focused on theory, not mysticism.
- paradox: a device in which a seeming contradiction may reveal an unexpected truth
- repetition: constantly repeating for effect.
- simile: comparison using "like" or "as."
- stream of consciousness: literature without formal structure. echoes true thought. nonlinear.
- tim o'brien wrote:: the things they carried
- tone: the means by which a poet reveals attitudes and feelings; satire and irony included.
- william faulkner wrote:: a rose for emily
- william shakespeare wrote:: a midsummer night's dream