English Critical Terms

Narrator

The person who gives an oral or written account of a story.

Tense

A set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time of the action in relation to the time it is being described.

Fiction

Literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people.

Memoir

A historical or biographical account written from personal experience.

Extended Metaphor

A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.

Imagery

Descriptive language that develops the reader’s 5 senses in a work of literature.

Tension

Mental or emotional strain.

Cohesion

The action of forming a unified whole.