Help
Options
Didn't know it?
click below
click below
Knew it?
click below
click below
Don't Know
Remaining cards (0)
Know
retry
shuffle
restart
0:00
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
All Things Lit
ELAR 7-12 flashcards
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Epic | A long poem reflecting the values of a society. Usually contains a protagonist, the lead character, and an antagonist, a character who opposes or competes with the protagonist who may possess supernatural powers. |
| Protagonist | The lead character in literary work |
| Fable | A tale in which animals take on human characteristics; usually written to provide a moral lesson (didactic) or to illustrate man's shortcomings. |
| Farce | A light dramatic composition that uses highly improbable situations, stereotyped characters, exaggerations, and violence. It is generally regarded as inferior to comedy because of its crude characterizations. |
| Legend | A story of traditional, enduring quality from earlier times. |
| Myth | Related the deeds of extraordinary beings and speak to a common truth about life. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more words in a line of writing; often used for poetic effect. Based on sound, not spelling. |
| Allusion | Reference to a well-known person, place, object, event or literary work or work of art. The use of allusion implies shared literary and cultural experiences between author and reader. |
| Anachronism | Placing an event, person or object out of its proper chronological place. |
| Analogy | An inference that two dissimilar things share common traits. |
| Antagonist | A character or force in conflict with the main (protagonist) character. |
| Antithesis | A figure of speech in which a thought is balanced with a contrasting thought in parallel arrangements of words and phrases. |
| Apostrophe | When a character turns away from the audience and directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality. Allows the character the opportunity to think aloud. |
| Aside | Lines spoken directly to the audience by an actor |
| Assonance | The repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words. |
| Catharsis | The reader or audience feels compassion with the protagonist and experiences a sense of relief when watching a protagonist overcome great odds. |
| Character | A person in a story, poem or play. Even if the character is an animal or a god, the character will have human characteristics. |
| Static character | A character who does not change during the course of the story |
| Dynamic character | A character that changes in some way during the story |
| Flat character | A character who exhibit few personality traits in a literary work |
| Round character | A complex character in a literary work |
| Climax | The moment of the greatest emotional tension or suspense in a story or novel |
| Connotation | A hidden meaning of a word usually determined by the context in which the word is used. Words may be negative or positive. |
| Consonance | An example of near rhyme - the repetition of terminal consonant sounds; often used by poets to create rhyme. |
| Denouement | A french term that literally "untying the knot" used to describe the moment of climax resolution a story |
| Denotation | The literal dictionary meaning(s) of a word |
| Eulogy | A speech or writing to praise or honor someone, most commonly spoken at a funeral |
| Euphemism | A device where a direct, unpleasant expression is replaced by an indirect, pleasant phrase. |
| Existentialism | Popularized by the writer, Sartre - believed that man determines his own destiny by the choices he makes, anchored in reality not idealized life. |
| First-person narrative | A character in a story tells the story from this point of view, often using the pronouns I, me, or my. |
| Flashback | A section of a literary work that interrupts the sequence of events to relate to an event from an earlier time. |
| Figure of Speech - Figurative language | Writing or language not meant for literal interpretation; instead, these words are out of their literal meaning or out of their ordinary use in order to add beauty or emotional intensity or to transfer meaning by comparing or identifying one thing with another. Figures of speech may include simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, or symbolism. |
| Foreshadowing | A hint that prepares readers for what occurs later in the work. In the film, Jaws, the audience members always knew when the shark was coming close to a victim when the music played. |
| Hyperbole | An exaggerated expression or overstatement. |
| Image, Imagery | Language that addresses the senses of the real or imaged world. The descriptive or figurative language used in literature to evoke mental images, not only in the visual sense, but also using other senses or the emotions as well. |
| Irony | An unexpected disparity between what is spoken or written and the reality or expectation of the situation |
| Verbal Irony | Is when the author says one thing and means something else. |
| Dramatic Irony | Takes place when the audience perceives something that the character does not know |
| Malapropism | French meaning "ill to purpose". The mistaken substitution of one word for another that sounds similar, generally for comic effect. |
| Meiosis | Understatement; the presentation of a word or phrase with under-emphasis in order to achieve a greater effect |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is implicitly compared to something else creating an analogy, without words such as like or as. |
| Extended metaphor | Where the entire work is organized into a comparison. |
| Metonymy | A figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another object closely associated with it. |
| Motif | A thematic element recurring frequently in a work of literature |
| Muse | The name denotes memory or a reminder. In mythology, this is a source of inspiration, or guiding genius. |
| Narration | A story told in fiction, nonfiction, poetry or drama. May be limited, and told from the point of view of one character in either first or third person; or it may be omniscient. |
| Neoclassicism | Adherence to virtues thought to be characteristic or classical literature: elegance, correctness, simplicity, dignity, restraint, order, and proportion; sometimes modifies a classic in order to comment on contemporary conditions. Used to describe the revival during the English Enlightenment or Restoration Era of ideals of art and literature derived from the Greek and Roman classics. Burke, Dryden, Johnson, Pope, Swift. |
| Omniscient | A literary work in which the narrator reveals to the audience or reader what the characters think and feel. |
| Onomatopoeia | The use of words that imitate sounds. |
| Oxymoron | The conjunction of words which, at first view, seem to be contradictory or incongruous, but whose surprising juxtaposition expresses a truth. |
| Palindrome | A word, verse, or sentence in which the sequence of letters is the same forward and backward. |
| Paradox | A statement which appears contradictory or absurd to common sense yet can be seen as true when viewed from the writer's point of view. |
| Pathos | A scene or passage in a work evoking great emotion in the audience or reader. |
| Personification | A type of figurative language in which distinctive human characteristics are given to objects/ animals. |
| Point of view | From whose perspective the story is being told -- such as a character within the story or an omniscient narrator -- and what their vantage point is |
| Pyramid | A graphic design that illustrates the structure of a typical five-act play |
| Exposition | The introduction, background information of a five-act play |
| Rising action | The events leading up to the climax of a play or other literary work |
| Falling action | Action after the climax leading to the denoument or catastophe |
| Catastrophe | The final action that completes the unraveling of the plot |
| Romanticism | 1798 - 1832; celebrated spontaneity, imagination, subjectivity, and purity of nature. Was a movement placing artistic emphasis on imagination or strong emotion. Emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. The works emphasize rebellion against social conventions. Ex. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Shelley, John Keats. Poe, Hawthorne, Bryant, Melville, Whittier. |
| Satire | A style of writing that uses humor to criticize people, governments or ideas. The writer's intent is usually to correct an injustice or social wrong. |
| Similie | A figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison using words such as like, as, than or seems. |
| Soliloquy | A speech delivered by a character as he talks aloud to himself that reveals the character's state of mind. |
| Surrealism | Expresses thought uncontrolled by logical reasoning or moral codes |
| Symbolism/ Symbol | When a writer uses visible objects or action to suggest some further meaning. The writer reveals symbolism in the work by repetition, using dramatic scenes, description, or dialogue. |
| Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole or the whole for a part. |
| Theme | The central idea, topic, message, or insight into life revealed through the literary work. |
| Tone | A writer's style, attitude, or expression toward the subject. Can also refer to the overall mood of a poem or literary work. |
| Ballad | A song that tells a story. Generally passed down through the generations. |
| Blank verse | Poetry written in iambic pentameter; consisting of unrhymed, five-stress lines. |
| Free verse | A poem with no regular meter, line length, or rhyme; usually written as a narrative. |
| Limerick | A light, humorous five line verse: lines one, two and five are of three feet and line three and four are of two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba |
| Haiku | A Japanese form of poetry consisting of 17 syllables, three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables. |
| Imagery | The author's use of descriptive or figurative language that evokes the senses or emotions of the reader. The words often create a mental picture for the readers. |
| Lyric | A short poem told by a single speaker involving love, sadness or the natural world. |
| Meter | Originates from the Greek, mentron, meaning "to measure" and refers to the "beat" of the poem; thus, meter pertains to the structure of the poem. Also refers to the number of feet in a line. |
| Iambic | An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (the beat or pattern closely resembles the natural rhythm of speech) |
| Trochaic | A stressed followed by an unstressed syllable in poetry. |
| Anapestic | Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable in poetry. |
| Dactylic | A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables in poetry |
| Metaphysical poetry | A popular form of poetry during the 17th century. Brief and concentrated in meaning and sometimes cynical, this poetry often employed a blend of formal and colloquial language written in extended metaphors to describe the subjects of love, law, medicine, philosophy and religion. |
| Pantoum | A poem consisting of 4-line stanzas with lines rhyming alternately; the second and four lines of each stanza are repeated to form the first and third lines of the succeeding stanza; the first and third lines of the first stanza form the second and fourth of the last stanza, but in reverse order, so that the opening and closing lines of the poem are identical. The theme is conveyed in the second two lines of each quatrain, while the first two lines present an image or allusion. |
| Refrain | A stanza, line, part of a line, or phrase, generally pertinent to the central topic, which is repeated verbatim, usually at regular intervals throughout a poem, most often at the end of a stanza. |
| Rhythm | Determined by the way a line is spoken or voice; usually determined by the end words of each line |
| Rhyme | Used to provide pleasure in the sound and cadence of a poem; often associated with music and beat |
| Sonnet | A poem of fourteen lines in written iambic pentameter. Categorized as either Petrarchan or Shakespearean |
| Petrarchan Sonnet | Consists of eight rhyming lines (octave) and six rhyming lines (sestet). THe octave develops a thought and the sestet is the completion or comment upon the thought. |
| Shakespearean/ Elizabethan Sonnet | Consists of three rhyming quatrains (4 lines each) which introduce subject, and a couplet (two rhyming lines) that provide a conclusion |
| Couplet | two line stanza |
| Tercet | three line stanza |
| Quatrain | four line stanza |
| Quintet | five line stanza |
| sestet | six line stanza |
| septet | seven line stanza |
| octave | eight line stanza |
| The Epic of GIlgamesh | 7th century B.C.; A babylonian epic, most likely oldest written story on Earth. The epic, filled with symbolism, describes the life of a Sumerian King. |
| The Illiad and The Odyssey | 700 B.C.; written by Homer; Greek legend tells the story (in two parts) about the Trojan wars and return of the warriors to their homeland. Blends mythical knowledge and ancient Greek history to describe exploits of Achilles during the Trojan War. |
| Young Adult Literature | Aimed at students between the ages of 12 and 20 explores a wide range of societal issues that can relate to all content areas. Can play an important role in developing pride in one's heritage and building positive self-concept. |
| Dialect | A variation of Standard English that is distinct in vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation. |
| Field-dependent | Describes how a student learns. Person perceives the world holistically and is dependent on seeing the whole unit first before understanding the parts. |
| Field-independent | Describes how a student learns. Person is able to perceive the parts of a whole and focus directly on one element independently from the whole. |
| Active Voice | A sentence style which the subject performs the action. |
| Dependent (Subordinate) Clause | A clause that cannot stand alone as a sentence and must be combined with an independent clause. |
| Parallel Construction | A sentence construction where equal parts are expressed using similar grammatical forms. Each part of speech in each idea has a counterpart in the next idea. |
| Media literacy | Requires that students interact with this growing body of information through the development of information-age communication skills. This person should be able to produce, create, and critique information in all its forms, not just print. |
| Etymology | The linguistic history or origin of a word |
| Multicultural literature | Literature that represents any distinct cultural group through portrayal and rich detail. |
| Old English | Language that evolved from the Germanic settlement along the Elbe river region and brought to the British Isles during the 5th and 6th. Also known as Anglo-Saxon. |
| Pre-writing | Any activity used to motivate or encourage creative thought before writing or during writing. Moves the writers from the thinking stage to the writing stage. |
| Writing Process | The five stages include: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. DO not necessarily occur in a particular order or sequence. |
| Chiasmus | Rhetorical technique in which the order of occurrence of words or phrases is reversed to bring meaning to the sentence. |
| Hypercorrection | A pronunciation word form, or grammatical construction produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage out of a desire to be correct. |
| Didatic Poem | A verse that has a primary purpose of teaching one or more lessons |
| Dystopia | An imaginary horrible world, the opposite of utopias. Common in science Fiction. |
| Elegy | A long formal poem about death or loss |
| Naturalism | Literary movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that portrayed the lives of characters as being determined, or caused, by outside events beyond their control. Zola, Dreiser, Crane. |
| Persuasive Writing | Emphasis is on the reader. The major purpose is to change the reader's mind or to move the reader to action. |
| Dramatic Monologue | Dramatic work of poetry or literature in which a person is talking. |
| Dramatic Dialogue | Dramatic work of poetry or literature in which two people are talking |
| Authentic Assessment | Activities that allow students to demonstrate their own understanding |
| Middle English Period | Was triggered by the French bringing about the development of language during the Norman Conquest in 1066 |
| Orthography | The conventional spelling system of a language |
| Miscue Analysis | Assessment that helps the teacher identify the cueing systems used by a reader. Instead of focusing on errors, this focuses on what the student is doing right, so that he or she can learn to build on existing strategies. |
| Cloze Assessment | An exercise, test, or assessment consisting of a portion of text with certain words removed , where the participant is asked to replace the missing words. |
| Building a Student's Vocabulary | Having Students build word knowledge by working with a known latin root is a very effective method of . . . |
| Relative clause | Will contain and subject and verb, will begin with a relative pronoun, or a relative adverb, will function as an adjective, answering the questions: What kind? How many? or Which one? |
| Relative Pronouns are . . . | Who, Whom, Whose, That, or Which |
| Relative Adverbs are . . . | When, Where, or Why |
| When slang expressions, colloquialisms, technical words, or words used in a humorous or ironical way, the correct punctuation is . . . | Enclose the word or phrase in quotation marks |
| Static Register | Style of communications rarely or never changes. It is "frozen" in time and content. |
| Formal Register | Language is used in formal settings and is one-way in nature. This use of language usually follows a commonly accepted format (e.g. sermons, rhetorical statements and questions, speeches, pronouncements made by judges, announcements) |
| Consultative Register | Standard form of communications. Users engage in mutually accepted structure of communications. It is professional - disclosure (e.g. when strangers meet, communications between a superior and a subordinate, doctor and patient, lawyer and client, lawyer and judge, teacher and student) |
| Casual Register | Informal language used by peers and friends. Slang, vulgarities and colloquialisms are normal. One must be member to engage in this register (e.g. buddies, teammates, chats and emails, and blogs, and letters to friends). |
| Intimate Register | Communications is private. Intonation more important than wording or grammar. Private vocabulary. Reserved for close family members or intimate people. (e.g. husband and wife, siblings, parent and child). |
| More than half of English words originate from these two languages | Greek and Latin |
| About 60% of the English language reflects what influence? | Latin |
| The beginning of English dates back to what year? | 449 A.D. |
| This provides insight into modern word meanings | Greek roots |
| Metacognition | Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes |
| Literal Comprehension | The understanding of the written meaning of a passage - is what is actually stated (facts and details). The first level of comprehension. |
| Inferential or Interpretive Comprehension | What is implied or meant, rather than actually stated. The second level of comprehension. |
| Applied or Critical Comprehension | Taking what was said (literal) and what was meant by what was said (interpretive) and then extend the concepts or ideas beyond the situation. Readers are thinking analytically, using hints and clues to make sense of ideas implied but not directly stated in text. Analyzing information and applying it to other information. The third level of comprehension. |
| When using Applied or Critical Comprehension readers are required to do which five things? | (1) be critical, (2) form opinions, (3) identify author's points of view and attitudes, (4) identify and consider the authority of texts and their messages, and (5) infer motives of characters and themes. |
| Why is Aesthetic response an effective response or reaction to text? | Reflects the reader's personal and emotional responses based on background knowledge, attitudes, and experiences. |
| Aesthetic Response | An effective response or reaction to the text. Reflects the reader's personal and emotional response. The reader's thoughts and feelings to a literary selection are considered very important components of literary interpretation. |
| Reading Fluency | The ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. |
| Fluent Readers | Read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. Their reading is smooth and has expression. |
| What is an effective reading strategy for increasing reading fluency? | Asking students to practice their reading skills by re-reading favorite stories/ books/ poems. |
| Context | The other words and sentences that are around the new word. |
| Structual Analysis | The process of using familiar word parts to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. |
| Cueing systems | Decoding strategies a reader uses to make sense of a text. |
| Morphological | Looking at the roots of the words |
| Contextual | Looking for clues within the text |
| Syntactical | The word's position in the sentence |
| Definitional | Looking up the definition of the word |
| Aphorism | a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it. |
| Enlightenment | Age of Reason, primarily associated with nonfiction work, such as essays and philosophical treatises. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rousseau, Descartes |
| Literature Circles | The focus of learning is on inquiry and exploration, not on literary elements or agreeing on interpretation |
| Beginning English Language Learner | Lack the English Vocabulary and grasp of English language structures necessary to address grade-appropriate writing tasks meaningfully |
| Intermediate English Language Learner | Have enough English vocabulary and enough grasp of English language structures to address grade appropriate writing tasks in a limited way |
| Advanced English Language Learner | Have enough English vocabulary and command of English language structures to address appropriate writing tasks in a limited way |
| Advanced High English Language Learners | Have acquired the English vocabulary and command of English language structures necessary to address grade-appropriate writing tasks with minimal second language acquisition support |
| Epic | A long poem reflecting the values of a society. Usually contains a protagonist, the lead character, and an antagonist, a character who opposes or competes with the protagonist who may possess supernatural powers. |
| Protagonist | The lead character in literary work |
| Fable | A tale in which animals take on human characteristics; usually written to provide a moral lesson (didactic) or to illustrate man's shortcomings. |
| Farce | A light dramatic composition that uses highly improbable situations, stereotyped characters, exaggerations, and violence. It is generally regarded as inferior to comedy because of its crude characterizations. |
| Legend | A story of traditional, enduring quality from earlier times. |
| Myth | Related the deeds of extraordinary beings and speak to a common truth about life. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more words in a line of writing; often used for poetic effect. Based on sound, not spelling. |
| Allusion | Reference to a well-known person, place, object, event or literary work or work of art. The use of allusion implies shared literary and cultural experiences between author and reader. |
| Anachronism | Placing an event, person or object out of its proper chronological place. |
| Analogy | An inference that two dissimilar things share common traits. |
| Antagonist | A character or force in conflict with the main (protagonist) character. |
| Antithesis | A figure of speech in which a thought is balanced with a contrasting thought in parallel arrangements of words and phrases. |
| Apostrophe | When a character turns away from the audience and directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality. Allows the character the opportunity to think aloud. |
| Aside | Lines spoken directly to the audience by an actor |
| Assonance | The repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words. |
| Catharsis | The reader or audience feels compassion with the protagonist and experiences a sense of relief when watching a protagonist overcome great odds. |
| Character | A person in a story, poem or play. Even if the character is an animal or a god, the character will have human characteristics. |
| Static character | A character who does not change during the course of the story |
| Dynamic character | A character that changes in some way during the story |
| Flat character | A character who exhibit few personality traits in a literary work |
| Round character | A complex character in a literary work |
| Climax | The moment of the greatest emotional tension or suspense in a story or novel |
| Connotation | A hidden meaning of a word usually determined by the context in which the word is used. Words may be negative or positive. |
| Consonance | An example of near rhyme - the repetition of terminal consonant sounds; often used by poets to create rhyme. |
| Denouement | A french term that literally "untying the knot" used to describe the moment of climax resolution a story |
| Denotation | The literal dictionary meaning(s) of a word |
| Eulogy | A speech or writing to praise or honor someone, most commonly spoken at a funeral |
| Euphemism | A device where a direct, unpleasant expression is replaced by an indirect, pleasant phrase. |
| Existentialism | Popularized by the writer, Sartre - believed that man determines his own destiny by the choices he makes, anchored in reality not idealized life. |
| First-person narrative | A character in a story tells the story from this point of view, often using the pronouns I, me, or my. |
| Flashback | A section of a literary work that interrupts the sequence of events to relate to an event from an earlier time. |
| Figure of Speech - Figurative language | Writing or language not meant for literal interpretation; instead, these words are out of their literal meaning or out of their ordinary use in order to add beauty or emotional intensity or to transfer meaning by comparing or identifying one thing with another. Figures of speech may include simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, or symbolism. |
| Foreshadowing | A hint that prepares readers for what occurs later in the work. In the film, Jaws, the audience members always knew when the shark was coming close to a victim when the music played. |
| Hyperbole | An exaggerated expression or overstatement. |
| Image, Imagery | Language that addresses the senses of the real or imaged world. The descriptive or figurative language used in literature to evoke mental images, not only in the visual sense, but also using other senses or the emotions as well. |
| Irony | An unexpected disparity between what is spoken or written and the reality or expectation of the situation |
| Verbal Irony | Is when the author says one thing and means something else. |
| Dramatic Irony | Takes place when the audience perceives something that the character does not know |
| Malapropism | French meaning "ill to purpose". The mistaken substitution of one word for another that sounds similar, generally for comic effect. |
| Meiosis | Understatement; the presentation of a word or phrase with under-emphasis in order to achieve a greater effect |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is implicitly compared to something else creating an analogy, without words such as like or as. |
| Extended metaphor | Where the entire work is organized into a comparison. |
| Metonymy | A figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another object closely associated with it. |
| Motif | A thematic element recurring frequently in a work of literature |
| Muse | The name denotes memory or a reminder. In mythology, this is a source of inspiration, or guiding genius. |
| Narration | A story told in fiction, nonfiction, poetry or drama. May be limited, and told from the point of view of one character in either first or third person; or it may be omniscient. |
| Neoclassicism | Adherence to virtues thought to be characteristic or classical literature: elegance, correctness, simplicity, dignity, restraint, order, and proportion; sometimes modifies a classic in order to comment on contemporary conditions. Used to describe the revival during the English Enlightenment or Restoration Era of ideals of art and literature derived from the Greek and Roman classics. Burke, Dryden, Johnson, Pope, Swift. |
| Omniscient | All knowing narrator. A literary work in which the narrator reveals to the audience or reader what the characters think and feel. All knowing 3rd POV narration and moves from character to character allowing different voices to interpret event. Ex: little women and scarlet letter |
| Onomatopoeia | The use of words that imitate sounds. |
| Oxymoron | Opposite ideas are combined. Ex: jumbo shrimp |
| Palindrome | A word, verse, or sentence in which the sequence of letters is the same forward and backward. |
| Paradox | A statement which appears contradictory or absurd to common sense yet can be seen as true when viewed from the writer's point of view. |
| Pathos | A scene or passage in a work evoking great emotion in the audience or reader. |
| Personification | A type of figurative language in which distinctive human characteristics are given to objects/ animals. |
| Point of view | From whose perspective the story is being told -- such as a character within the story or an omniscient narrator -- and what their vantage point is |
| Pyramid | A graphic design that illustrates the structure of a typical five-act play |
| Exposition | The introduction, background information of a five-act play |
| Rising action | The events leading up to the climax of a play or other literary work |
| Falling action | Action after the climax leading to the denoument or catastophe |
| Catastrophe | The final action that completes the unraveling of the plot |
| Romanticism | 1798 - 1832; celebrated spontaneity, imagination, subjectivity, and purity of nature. Was a movement placing artistic emphasis on imagination or strong emotion. Emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. The works emphasize rebellion against social conventions. Ex. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Shelley, John Keats. Poe, Hawthorne, Bryant, Melville, Whittier, Whitma |
| Satire | A style of writing that uses humor to criticize people, governments or ideas. The writer's intent is usually to correct an injustice or social wrong. |
| Similie | A figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison using words such as like, as, than or seems. |
| Soliloquy | A speech delivered by a character as he talks aloud to himself that reveals the character's state of mind. |
| Surrealism | Expresses thought uncontrolled by logical reasoning or moral codes |
| Symbolism/ Symbol | When a writer uses visible objects or action to suggest some further meaning. The writer reveals symbolism in the work by repetition, using dramatic scenes, description, or dialogue. |
| Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole or the whole for a part. |
| Theme | The central idea, topic, message, or insight into life revealed through the literary work. |
| Tone | A writer's style, attitude, or expression toward the subject. Can also refer to the overall mood of a poem or literary work. |
| Ballad | A song that tells a story. Generally passed down through the generations. |
| Blank verse | Poetry written in iambic pentameter; consisting of unrhymed, five-stress lines. |
| Free verse | A poem with no regular meter, line length, or rhyme; usually written as a narrative. |
| Limerick | A light, humorous five line verse: lines one, two and five are of three feet and line three and four are of two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba |
| Haiku | A Japanese form of poetry consisting of 17 syllables, three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables. |
| Imagery | The author's use of descriptive or figurative language that evokes the senses or emotions of the reader. The words often create a mental picture for the readers. |
| Lyric | A short poem told by a single speaker involving love, sadness or the natural world. |
| Meter | Originates from the Greek, mentron, meaning "to measure" and refers to the "beat" of the poem; thus, meter pertains to the structure of the poem. Also refers to the number of feet in a line. |
| Iambic | An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (the beat or pattern closely resembles the natural rhythm of speech) |
| Trochaic | A stressed followed by an unstressed syllable in poetry. |
| Anapestic | Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable in poetry. |
| Dactylic | A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables in poetry |
| Metaphysical poetry | A popular form of poetry during the 17th century. Brief and concentrated in meaning and sometimes cynical, this poetry often employed a blend of formal and colloquial language written in extended metaphors to describe the subjects of love, law, medicine, philosophy and religion. |
| Pantoum | A poem consisting of 4-line stanzas with lines rhyming alternately; the second and four lines of each stanza are repeated to form the first and third lines of the succeeding stanza; the first and third lines of the first stanza form the second and fourth of the last stanza, but in reverse order, so that the opening and closing lines of the poem are identical. The theme is conveyed in the second two lines of each quatrain, while the first two lines present an image or allusion. |
| Refrain | A stanza, line, part of a line, or phrase, generally pertinent to the central topic, which is repeated verbatim, usually at regular intervals throughout a poem, most often at the end of a stanza. |
| Rhythm | Determined by the way a line is spoken or voice; usually determined by the end words of each line |
| Rhyme | Used to provide pleasure in the sound and cadence of a poem; often associated with music and beat |
| Sonnet | A poem of fourteen lines in written iambic pentameter. Categorized as either Petrarchan or Shakespearean |
| Petrarchan Sonnet | Consists of eight rhyming lines (octave) and six rhyming lines (sestet). The octave develops a thought and the sestet is the completion or comment upon the thought. |
| Shakespearean/ Elizabethan Sonnet | Consists of three rhyming quatrains (4 lines each) which introduce subject, and a couplet (two rhyming lines) that provide a conclusion |
| Couplet | two line stanza |
| Tercet | three line stanza |
| Quatrain | four line stanza |
| Quintet | five line stanza |
| sestet | six line stanza |
| septet | seven line stanza |
| octave | eight line stanza |
| The Epic of GIlgamesh | 7th century B.C.; A babylonian epic, most likely oldest written story on Earth. The epic, filled with symbolism, describes the life of a Sumerian King. |
| The Illiad and The Odyssey | 700 B.C.; written by Homer; Greek legend tells the story (in two parts) about the Trojan wars and return of the warriors to their homeland. Blends mythical knowledge and ancient Greek history to describe exploits of Achilles during the Trojan War. |
| Young Adult Literature | Aimed at students between the ages of 12 and 20 explores a wide range of societal issues that can relate to all content areas. Can play an important role in developing pride in one's heritage and building positive self-concept. |
| Dialect | A variation of Standard English that is distinct in vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation. |
| Field-dependent | Describes how a student learns. Person perceives the world holistically and is dependent on seeing the whole unit first before understanding the parts. |
| Field-independent | Describes how a student learns. Person is able to perceive the parts of a whole and focus directly on one element independently from the whole. |
| Active Voice | A sentence style which the subject performs the action. |
| Dependent (Subordinate) Clause | A clause that cannot stand alone as a sentence and must be combined with an independent clause. |
| Parallel Construction | A sentence construction where equal parts are expressed using similar grammatical forms. Each part of speech in each idea has a counterpart in the next idea. |
| Media literacy | Requires that students interact with this growing body of information through the development of information-age communication skills. This person should be able to produce, create, and critique information in all its forms, not just print. |
| Etymology | The linguistic history or origin of a word |
| Multicultural literature | Literature that represents any distinct cultural group through portrayal and rich detail. |
| Old English | Language that evolved from the Germanic settlement along the Elbe river region and brought to the British Isles during the 5th and 6th. Also known as Anglo-Saxon. |
| Pre-writing | Any activity used to motivate or encourage creative thought before writing or during writing. Moves the writers from the thinking stage to the writing stage. |
| Writing Process | The five stages include: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. DO not necessarily occur in a particular order or sequence. |
| Chiasmus | Rhetorical technique in which the order of occurrence of words or phrases is reversed to bring meaning to the sentence. |
| Hypercorrection | A pronunciation word form, or grammatical construction produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage out of a desire to be correct. |
| Didatic Poem | A verse that has a primary purpose of teaching one or more lessons |
| Dystopia | An imaginary horrible world, the opposite of utopias. Common in science Fiction. |
| Elegy | A long formal poem about death or loss |
| Naturalism | 1870-1920. Literary movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that portrayed the lives of characters as being determined, or caused, by outside events beyond their control. Social Darwinism, realism suggests social conditions and environment shapes people. Zola, Dreiser, Crane, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright. |
| Persuasive Writing | Emphasis is on the reader. The major purpose is to change the reader's mind or to move the reader to action. |
| Dramatic Monologue | Dramatic work of poetry or literature in which a person is talking. |
| Dramatic Dialogue | Dramatic work of poetry or literature in which two people are talking |
| Authentic Assessment | Activities that allow students to demonstrate their own understanding |
| Middle English Period | Was triggered by the French bringing about the development of language during the Norman Conquest in 1066 |
| Orthography | The conventional spelling system of a language |
| Miscue Analysis | Assessment that helps the teacher identify the cueing systems used by a reader. Instead of focusing on errors, this focuses on what the student is doing right, so that he or she can learn to build on existing strategies. |
| Cloze Assessment | An exercise, test, or assessment consisting of a portion of text with certain words removed , where the participant is asked to replace the missing words. |
| Building a Student's Vocabulary | Having Students build word knowledge by working with a known latin root is a very effective method of . . . |
| Relative clause | Will contain and subject and verb, will begin with a relative pronoun, or a relative adverb, will function as an adjective, answering the questions: What kind? How many? or Which one? |
| Relative Pronouns are . . . | Who, Whom, Whose, That, or Which |
| Relative Adverbs are . . . | When, Where, or Why |
| When slang expressions, colloquialisms, technical words, or words used in a humorous or ironical way, the correct punctuation is . . . | Enclose the word or phrase in quotation marks |
| Static Register | Style of communications rarely or never changes. It is "frozen" in time and content. |
| Formal Register | Language is used in formal settings and is one-way in nature. This use of language usually follows a commonly accepted format (e.g. sermons, rhetorical statements and questions, speeches, pronouncements made by judges, announcements) |
| Consultative Register | Standard form of communications. Users engage in mutually accepted structure of communications. It is professional - disclosure (e.g. when strangers meet, communications between a superior and a subordinate, doctor and patient, lawyer and client, lawyer and judge, teacher and student) |
| Casual Register | Informal language used by peers and friends. Slang, vulgarities and colloquialisms are normal. One must be member to engage in this register (e.g. buddies, teammates, chats and emails, and blogs, and letters to friends). |
| Intimate Register | Communications is private. Intonation more important than wording or grammar. Private vocabulary. Reserved for close family members or intimate people. (e.g. husband and wife, siblings, parent and child). |
| More than half of English words originate from these two languages | Greek and Latin |
| About 60% of the English language reflects what influence? | Latin |
| The beginning of English dates back to what year? | 449 A.D. |
| This provides insight into modern word meanings | Greek roots |
| Metacognition | Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes |
| Literal Comprehension | The understanding of the written meaning of a passage - is what is actually stated (facts and details). The first level of comprehension. |
| Inferential or Interpretive Comprehension | What is implied or meant, rather than actually stated. The second level of comprehension. |
| Applied or Critical Comprehension | Taking what was said (literal) and what was meant by what was said (interpretive) and then extend the concepts or ideas beyond the situation. Readers are thinking analytically, using hints and clues to make sense of ideas implied but not directly stated in text. Analyzing information and applying it to other information. The third level of comprehension. |
| When using Applied or Critical Comprehension readers are required to do which five things? | (1) be critical, (2) form opinions, (3) identify author's points of view and attitudes, (4) identify and consider the authority of texts and their messages, and (5) infer motives of characters and themes. |
| Why is Aesthetic response an effective response or reaction to text? | Reflects the reader's personal and emotional responses based on background knowledge, attitudes, and experiences. |
| Aesthetic Response | An effective response or reaction to the text. Reflects the reader's personal and emotional response. The reader's thoughts and feelings to a literary selection are considered very important components of literary interpretation. |
| Reading Fluency | The ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. |
| Fluent Readers | Read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. Their reading is smooth and has expression. |
| What is an effective reading strategy for increasing reading fluency? | Asking students to practice their reading skills by re-reading favorite stories/ books/ poems. |
| Context | The other words and sentences that are around the new word. |
| Structual Analysis | The process of using familiar word parts to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. |
| Cueing systems | Decoding strategies a reader uses to make sense of a text. |
| Morphological | Looking at the roots of the words |
| Contextual | Looking for clues within the text |
| Syntactical | The word's position in the sentence |
| Definitional | Looking up the definition of the word |
| Aphorism | a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it. |
| Enlightenment | Age of Reason, progress, and liberty. primarily associated with nonfiction work, such as essays and philosophical treatises. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rousseau, Descartes, Voltaire. |
| Literature Circles | The focus of learning is on inquiry and exploration, not on literary elements or agreeing on interpretation |
| Beginning English Language Learner | Lack the English Vocabulary and grasp of English language structures necessary to address grade-appropriate writing tasks meaningfully |
| Intermediate English Language Learner | Have enough English vocabulary and enough grasp of English language structures to address grade appropriate writing tasks in a limited way |
| Advanced English Language Learner | Have enough English vocabulary and command of English language structures to address appropriate writing tasks in a limited way |
| Advanced High English Language Learners | Have acquired the English vocabulary and command of English language structures necessary to address grade-appropriate writing tasks with minimal second language acquisition support |
| Medieval Period | 1100-1500. Beowulf, Cantebury tales, Chaucer. |
| Renaissance Period | 1500-1670 Protestant Reformation, Divine rights of kings to rule, humanistic ideas, change in social status, question religious/supernatural. John Donne, Shakespeare, Milton (Paradise Lost), Wyatt, Spenser, Sir Phillip Sydney. |
| Transcendental Movement | 1830-1860 Individual conscience, rejects materialism, loves nature. Emerson, Thoreau, Walden |
| Victorian Period | 1837-1901 Improve social conditions, acting proper, standard of ethics. Charles Dickens, Jane Eyre, Lord Tennyson, Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment) |
| Realism | 1820-1920 Honest protrayl of life, industrial revolution. Mark Twain |
| Modernism | 1910-1965 Doubt about existence of knowledge, attack of notions of hierarchy, stream of consciousness, experiment with form and style. James Joyce (Ulysses), F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Kafka, Faulkner, Hemingway (Lost generation). |
| Beat Generation | 1945-1965 Bohemian counterculture: sex, drugs, jazz. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac |
| Post-Modernism | 1965-today World driven by technology and consumerism. Toni Morrison |
| Gothic Novel | 1790-1830 during romantic period.The plot is usually set in a castle, an abbey, a monastery, or some other, usually religious edifice, and it is acknowledged that this building has secrets of its own. It is this gloomy and frightening scenery, which sets the scene for what the audience should expect. There is always the protagonist, usually isolated either voluntarily or involuntarily. Then there is the villain, who is the epitome of evil, either by his (usually a man) own fall from grace, or by some implic |
| metonomy | use of obj associated with a term to mean that term |
| Spenserian Stanza | invented for Fairie Queen; 9-line stanzas in iambic |
| Parallelism | emphasize key terms with repetition |
| iambic Pentameter | five iambs per line; 10 syllables |
| iamb | 2 syllables, unaccented and accented |
| conceit | comparison between disparate objs |
| neoclassicism | patterned after ancient Greece & ancient Rome; group over individual; response to Romanticism |
| SQ3R | Study, Question, Read, Recite, Review; ideal for middle school |
| Middle English | 1154-1470; wide variety of scribal/dialectic forms; lit used vernacular |
| interpretive questions | more than one correct answer; requires complex thought |
| Synecdoche | part used to refer to whole |
| Octava Rima | Italian stanza; 8 11-syllable lines; 13th-14th cent |
| Deductive Reasoning | top-down; logical conclusion from given info |
| Fables | morality tales featuring anthropomorphic animals |
| Piaget's Sensori-Motor | birth-2; recognizes self as agent of action |
| Piaget's Pre-Operational | 2-7; uses lang to rep objects with words; egocentric thinking |
| Piaget's Concrete Operational | 7-11; can order & classify objs; can think logically; achieved conservation of number |
| Piaget's Formal Operational | 11 up; can think abstractly |
| New Formalism | late 20th-early 21st cent; promotes return to metrical, rhymed verse |
| Aphorism | Pithily written concise truth |
| Metonymy | one thing called by the name of a related thing |
| Pastiche | imitation of another's style |
| Bound Morpheme | morpheme that can only operate adjoined to another word |
| Literal comperhension | understands words & concepts in a text |
| Realism | 19th- early 20th cent; describes the everyday |
| Regionalsim | late 19th cent-now; focuses on features specific to a region; features vernacular; often nostalgic, sentimental; diff from realism in terms of lack of power |
| Parnassianism | 19th cent; art for art's sake; reaction to sentimentality & flexibility; exacting, emotionally detached; emphasis on form, metrics |
| Formalist | ignores outside influence; focuses on features of text; early 20th cent |
| Modernism | early-mid 20th cent; uncertainty, disillusionment, despair; stark & unsettling |
| Rationalism | 17th-18th cent; all truth is accessible through reason; reason over sensory perceptions |
| Imagist poetry | relies on a clear image to convey meaning; free verse, common speech |
| Romantisism | 18th-19th cent; individual over society; connection to nature valued |
| Sarah Orne Jewett | regionalism |
| Kate Chopin | feminism |
| Bret Harte | Poet, Pioneering life |
| Jonathan Swift | Master of satire |
| Chinua Achebe | modern African lit |
| William Carlos Williams | poet; modernism, imagism |
| Edwidge Danticat | Haitian-American |
| Richard Wilbur | poet |
| Richard Wright | racial themes |
Created by:
OneTrueSintence
Popular English Vocabulary sets