Keystone Preparation

Fiction vs. Nonfiction

Fiction comes from imagination vs. nonfiction that’s solely based on facts.

Figurative Language

An effective way of communicating an idea that is not easily understood because of its abstract nature or complexity.

Purpose of Figurative Language

Helps to elicit emotion, help readers form mental images, and draw readers into the work.

Author’s Purpose

The author’s reason for writing; P.I.E. - Persuade, Inform, Entertain. We can ask ourselves words about choice, tone, connotations, and opinions an author includes in the writing to find the author’s purpose.

Purpose of Metaphors

To compare or contrast without using like or as. They use it to enhance their writing so the reader can better understand whats being portrayed.

Purpose of Similes

In order to show the reader direct characteristics in order to relate ideas to something the reader knows well, allowing them to visualize and understand the story much better than if the simile was not used.

Purpose of Personification

Stretches the boundaries of reality to make literature and poetry more vivid; to explain concepts, create compelling characters, and illustrate the setting.

Purpose of Foreshadowing

To generate or increase narrative suspense or tension

Purpose of Irony

To twist words, scene, and expected outcome to fit the writer's message

Purpose of Dialects

To characterize characters; to help writers bring the characters they have created to life. Illustrate their place of origin, cultural background, or social class

Purpose of Allusions

To help contextualize a story by referencing a well-known person, place, event, or another literary work

Purpose of Hyperbolies

To make an overstatement or exaggeration; creates emphasis and depending on the context, for comic or dramatic effect, to create vivid images, or to convey intensity or emotion.

Purpose of Symbolism

To explain an idea or concept to their readers in a poetic manner without saying it outright; allows writers to make their stories more complex. Many people also use symbolism in everyday life.

Purpose of Allegories

To express large, complex ideas in an approachable manner; allows writers to create some distance between themselves and the issues they are discussing, especially when those issues are strong critiques of political or societal realities.

Purpose of Imagery

To portray the sensational and emotional experience within text.

Purpose of Flashback

To help readers better understand present-day elements in the story or learn more about a character

Keystone Exam: Constructed Response Grading

CCAR

* Clean, Complete, Accurate, Relavent
* Make sure it answers both parts of promt
* ANSWER the prompt
* At least two pieces of evidence from the text - one for each part of the question

Main Idea

* The key information the author wants you to know after reading
* The main idea is the central point or message that the author wants to convey in a piece of writing. It is the most important thought or concept that the reader should take away from the text.
* NOT THE SUMMARY

Main Idea vs Theme

The main idea is what the book is mostly about. The theme is the message, lesson, or moral of a book.

How to find the Main Idea

* Ask what or whom the writing is about
* Ask “What does the author want me to know about this topic?”
* Authors often explicitly state the main idea in the intro or conclusion.
* Look for reversal transitions… words like but, otherwise, however…
* Look for ideas that are repeated in different ways.

Connotation

* The feeling a word evokes
* More friendly and casual

Denotation

* The dictionary definition of a word
* More formal

Satire

* A joke
* Use to highlight comedy/humor AND social activism
* Satire is the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice or folly.
* A literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.

Purpose of Satire

* Promote change through comedy

Affix

One or more letters occurring as a bound form attached to the beginning, end, or base of a word and serving to produce a derivative word or an inflectional form (e.g., a prefix or suffix).

Allegory

A form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning may have moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas such as charity, greed, or envy.

Alliteration

The repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words.

Allusion

An implied or indirect reference in literature to a familiar person, place, or event.

Analysis

The process or result of identifying the parts of a whole and their relationships to one another

Antonym

A word that is the opposite in meaning to another word.

Argument/Position

The position or claim the author establishes. Arguments should be supported with valid evidence and reasoning and balanced by the inclusion of counterarguments that illustrate opposing viewpoints.

Author’s Purpose

The author’s intent either to inform or teach someone about something, to entertain people or to persuade or convince his/her audience to do or not do something.

Bias

The subtle presence of a positive or negative approach toward a topic.

Biography

A written account of another person's life.

Character

A person, animal or inanimate object portrayed in a literary work.

Characterization

The method an author uses to reveal characters and their various traits and personalities (e.g., direct, indirect).

Climax

The turning point in a narrative; the moment when the conflict is at its most intense. Typically, the structure of stories, novels, and plays is one of rising action, in which tension builds to the climax.

Compare/Contrast

Place together characters, situations, or ideas to show common and/or differing features in literary selections.

Conflict/Problem

A struggle or clash between opposing characters, forces, or emotions.

Connotation

The range of associations that a word or phrase suggests in addition to its dictionary meaning.

Context Clues

Words and phrases in a sentence, paragraph, and/or whole text, which help reason out the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

Cultural Significance

The generally accepted importance of a work representing a given culture.

Defense of a Claim

Support provided to mark an assertion as reasonable.

Dialect

A variety of a language distinct from the standard variety in pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary.

Dialogue

In its widest sense, dialogue is simply conversation between characters or speakers in a literary work; in its most restricted sense, it refers specifically to the speech of characters in a drama.

Diction

An author’s choice of words, phrases, sentence structures and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning and tone.

Differentiate

Distinguish, tell apart, and recognize differences between two or more items.

Drama

The genre of literature represented by works intended for the stage; a work to be performed by actors on stage, radio, or television; play.

Dramatic Script

The written text of a play, which includes the dialogue between characters, stage directions and often other expository information.

Draw Conclusion

To make a judgment or decision based on reasoning rather than direct or implicit statement.

Main Idea

The author’s central thought; the chief topic of a text expressed or implied in a word or phrase; the topic sentence of a paragraph.

Metaphor

The comparison of two unlike things in which no words of comparison (like or as) are used (e.g., The speech gave me food for thought.)

Monologue

An extended speech spoken by one speaker, either to others or as if alone.

Mood

The prevailing emotions or atmosphere of a work derived from literary devices such as dialogue and literary elements such as setting. The mood of a work is not always what might be expected based on its subject matter.

Motif

A recurring subject, theme, or idea in a literary work.

Multiple‐meaning Words

Words that have several meanings depending upon how they are used in a sentence.

Narrative

A story, actual or fictional, expressed orally or in text.

Narrator

A person, animal, or thing telling the story or giving an account of something.

Nonfiction

Text that is not fictional; designed primarily to explain, argue, instruct or describe rather than entertain. For the most part, its emphasis is factual.

Opinion

A personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

Personification

An object or abstract idea given human qualities or human form (e.g., Flowers danced about the lawn.)

Plot

The structure of a story. 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. The plot may have a protagonist who is opposed by an antagonist, creating what is called conflict.

Poetry

In its broadest sense, text that aims to present ideas and evoke an emotional experience in the reader through the use of meter, imagery and connotative and concrete words. Some poetry has a carefully constructed structure based on rhythmic patterns. Poetry typically relies on words and expressions that have several layers of meaning (figurative language). It may also make use of the effects of regular rhythm on the ear and may make a strong appeal to the senses through the use of imagery.

Point of View

The position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator’s outlook from which the events are depicted (e.g., first person, third person limited, third person omniscient, etc). The perspective from which a speaker or author recounts a narrative or presents information. The author’s manner in revealing characters, events, and ideas; the vantage point from which a story is told.

Prefix

Groups of letters placed before a word to alter its meaning.

Propaganda

Information aimed at positively or negatively influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people.

Propaganda Techniques

Propaganda techniques and persuasive tactics are used to influence people to believe, buy or do something. Students should be able to identify and comprehend the propaganda techniques and persuasive tactics listed below.

Name‐calling

An attack on a person instead of an issue.

Bandwagon

Tries to persuade the reader to do, think or buy something because it is popular or because “everyone” is doing it.

Red herring

An attempt to distract the reader with details not relevant to the argument.

Emotional appeal

Tries to persuade the reader by using words that appeal to the reader’s emotions instead of appealing to logic or reason.

Testimonial

Attempts to persuade the reader by using a famous person to endorse a product or idea (for instance, the celebrity endorsement).

Repetition

Attempts to persuade the reader by repeating a message over and over again

Sweeping generalization

(stereotyping) Makes an oversimplified statement about a group based on limited information.

Circular argument

States a conclusion as part of the proof of the argument.

Appeal to numbers, facts, or statistics

Attempts to persuade the reader by showing how many people think something is true.

Resolution

The portion of a story following the climax in which the conflict is resolved. The resolution of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is neatly summed up in the following sentence: “Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang and everybody smiled.”

Rising Action

The part of a story where the plot becomes increasingly complicated. Rising action leads up to the climax, or turning point.

Satire

A literary approach that ridicules or examines human vice or weakness.

Sentence Variety

Various sentence structures, styles, and lengths that can enhance the rhythm of or add emphasis to a piece of text. The presence of multiple sentence structures in a text (simple, complex, compound, compound‐complex) and/or various sentence beginnings (e.g., dependent and independent clauses, phrases, single words).

Sequence of Steps

A literary organizational form that presents the order in which tasks are to be performed.

Setting

The time and place in which a story unfolds.

Simile

A comparison of two unlike things in which a word of comparison (like or as) is used (e.g., The ant scurried as fast as a cheetah.)

Soliloquy

A dramatic speech, revealing inner thoughts and feelings, spoken aloud by one character while alone on the stage.

Sound Devices

Elements of literature that emphasize sound (e.g., assonance, consonance, alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoeia).

Speaker

The voice used by an author to tell/narrate a story or poem. The speaker is often a created identity, and should not automatically be equated with the author. See also narrator and point of view.

Stage Direction

A playwright’s written instructions provided in the text of a play about the setting or how the actors are to move and behave in a play.

Structure of Poem

The rhyming pattern, meter, grammar, and imagery used by a poet to convey meaning.

Style

The author’s choices regarding language, sentence structure, voice, and tone in order to communicate with the reader.

Suffix

Groups of letters placed after a word to alter its meaning or change it into a different kind of word, from an adjective to an adverb, etc.

Summarize

To capture all of the most important parts of the original text (paragraph, story, poem), but express them in a much shorter space, and as much as possible in the reader’s own words

Symbolism

A device in literature where an object represents an idea.

Synonym

A word that is similar in meaning to another word (e.g., sorrow, grief, sadness).

Syntax

The ordering of words into meaningful verbal patterns such as phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Text Organization/Structure

The author’s method of structuring a text; the way a text is structured from beginning to end. In literary works, the structure could include flashback and foreshadowing, for example. In nonfiction works, the structure could include sequence, question‐answer, cause‐effect, etc.

Theme

A topic of discussion or work; a major idea broad enough to cover the entire scope of a literary work. A theme may be stated or implied. Clues to the theme may be found in the prominent and/or reoccurring ideas in a work.

Third Person

A perspective in literature, the “third person” point of view presents the events of the story from outside of any single character’s perception, much like the omniscient point of view, but the reader must understand the action as it takes place and without any special insight into characters’ minds or motivations.

Tone

The attitude of the author toward the audience, characters, subject or the work itself (e.g., serious, humorous)

Universal Character

A character that symbolically embodies well‐known meanings and basic human experiences, regardless of when or where he/she lives (e.g., hero, villain, intellectual, dreamer).

Universal Significance

The generally accepted importance or value of a work to represent human experience regardless of culture or time period.