ELA FINAL EXAM VOCAB

the finale (45 words, I don't know how necessary the poetry terms are but he said there may be some so I just dumped them all lo)

Human Year Archetype

The use of nature’s cycles to portray human emotions.

Allegory

A literary device where characters, events, and settings are used as symbols to express a deeper moral, political, or abstract meaning.

Propaganda

The deliberate attempt to influence public opinion by communicating ideas and values purposefully designed to serve the interest of the propagandist.

Slogan

Short, simple phrases that are quick and easy to remember.

Fear

By playing on the audience’s deepest fears, propagandists can sway opinion and control behavior.

Corruption

When a public official uses their power for private gain.

Scapegoat

Placing unmerited blame on a person or group to channel resentment and frustration towards a common enemy or powerless victim.

Plain Folks

When the speaker presents themselves as an average Joe—a common person—who can understand and empathize with a listener’s concerns.

Gaslight

The practice of psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own reality.

Conflict

The problem in the story that results when someone cannot have what they want.

Mood

The atmosphere a piece contains that evokes a certain feeling or emotion from the reader.

Tone

An attitude the author conveys in their piece. Only how the author feels, not the reader.

Symbol

Anything concrete that stands for something abstract.

Indirect Characterization

When the author reveals a character through the character’s dialogue, physical description, actions, interactions with other characters, and thoughts.

Motif

A repeating element that often has symbolic meaning in a piece of literature.

Imagery

The use of description or figurative language to visualize a mood, idea, or character.

Setting

The world of a story. It includes the time, place, culture, and socioeconomic atmosphere during which a story takes place.

Situational Irony

When the exact opposite of what you expect to happen happens.

Subtext

The content underneath the dialogue (unspoken thoughts).

Foreshadowing

The use of hints as to what will happen later in the story.

Foil

A character who serves as a contrast for another character, and whose behaviors emphasize something about the other character’s behaviors.

Juxtaposition

Placing two characters, ideas, places, or actions side by side for the purpose of comparing and/or contrasting.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience knows something the characters don’t.

Suspension of Disbelief

The reader’s willingness to suspend doubt and believe the unbelievable for the sake of enjoyment.

Iambic Pentameter

A type of poetic meter (rhythmic pattern) commonly used by William Shakespeare.

Explication

The process of figuring out the meaning of a poem.

Poetry

An imaginative response to experience, reflecting a keen awareness of language; language is arranged in lines, often with a regular rhythm and a definite rhyme scheme.

Figurative Language

The description of one thing in terms of another.

Simile

Comparing two things using a linking word such as “like” or “as”.

Metaphor

Comparing two things without using like or as.

Personification

Giving human traits to animals or inanimate objects.

Rhythm

The “beat of the poem” resulting from the arrangement of syllables in the poem.

Speaker

The person or object telling the poem. It is NOT the author.

Enjambment

When a line of poetry does not end with end punctuation but continues into the next line or even into the next stanza.

Onomatopoeia

A word that sounds like the word it is describing.

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.

Approximate Rhyme

Words in a rhyming pattern that have a similar sound but are not perfect rhymes.

Internal Rhyme

A rhyme involving a word in the middle of a line and another at the end of the line or in the middle of the next line.

Stanzas

A group of lines in a poem.

Repetiton

The repeated use of words, phrases, or stanzas throughout the poem.

Alliteration

The repetition of sounds at the beginnings of 2 or more words close together.

Consonance

The repetition of a consonant sound in words close together and does not have to be at the beginnings of words.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds within words close together.

Literal Meaning

The actual meaning of the words written in the poem.

Figurative Meaning

The bigger or deeper meaning of the words written in the poem.