Literary Terms Essay examples

Sixth Grade Pre-AP Terminology

Terminology from previous years may be reviewed or expounded upon; students are responsible for knowing and applying prior terminology on Day 1 of 6th grade.
Literary Elements

Term

Antagonist
Character
Climax
Conflict /types of conflict

Denouement
Dialogue
Exposition
Falling Action
Inciting incident
Mood
Narrator
Plot
Protagonist
Rising action
Setting

Theme

Poetry Terms
Rhyme
Stanza

Definition

Adversary (opponent) of the protagonist
People or animals who take part in the action of a story
Pivotal or turning point
Tension between opposing forces in a work of literature
Types include:
External – person vs. person/person vs. fate/person vs. nature/person vs. society/ person vs. animal Internal – person vs. himself
Unraveling of the problem
Conversation between two or more characters; punctuated with quotation marks
Author lays groundwork for the reader (setting – time/place, characters, basic situation)
Leads inevitably toward a revelation of meaning
Introduction of conflict
Atmosphere or predominant emotion in a literary work (how it makes the reader feel)
The author or teller of a story
Sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem
Main character; the character with whom the reader identifies
Events that build toward a revelation of meaning
The environment in which the action of a fictional work takes place, including time period, historical milieu, as well as the social, political, and perhaps even spiritual realities; usually established through description or narration
Central message of a literary work; not the subject – the author’s idea about the subject; expressed as a sentence or general statement about life or human nature

Repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem Group of lines in a poem

Types of Literature
Autobiography
A piece that details the life of the author
A short, narrative poem, most frequently dealing with folklore or legends; written in straightBallad forward verse, seldom with detail – most suitable for singing
Biography
A piece that details the life of a person from history or present day, written by an independent author
A brief story that sets forth some pointed statement of truth
Fable
Fiction
Literature based on imagination and not fact

Folk tale
Non-fiction

Tale of unknown authorship; preserved and transmitted by oral tradition
Literature based on real events or occurrences

Grammar Terms
Adjectives
Adverbs
Capitalization
Clause
Comparative
form
Compound
sentence
Conjunctions
End marks
Paragraphing
Phrase
Predicate or verb Prepositions

Modifies nouns or pronouns; answers questions – what kind, what color, and how many
Modifies verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs; answers questions – how, where, when, how often, and to what extent; usually end in –ly;
Must know common adverbs: very and too
Use of upper case letters in titles, addresses, and proper nouns
Group of words that contains a subject and a verb
Used when comparing two
Must know regular and irregular forms
Two or more independent clauses joined with a comma and a coordinating conjunction or a semi-colon Joins words or phrases
Must memorize coordinating conjunctions: and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet
Periods, question marks, and exclamation points
The breaks in an essay or story
Group of words that does not contain a subject and a verb
Part of the sentence that contains the verb and its modifiers
Grammatically joins the noun to the rest of the sentence
Must memorize and recognize prepositions and their objects: about, above, across, after,

against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, but, by, concerning, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, off, of, out, outside, over, past, since, through.
Simple sentence
Spelling

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