English Literature, Grammar, and Instructional Strategies Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering literary forms, poetic devices, grammatical conventions, and pedagogical strategies from the lecture transcript.

Sonnet

A poem fourteen lines in length that has the requisite rhyme scheme and is written in iambic pentameter.

Ode

A lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.

Ballad

An anonymous narrative poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas, typically passed on orally as part of folk culture; the ballad stanza consists of four lines alternating tetrameter and trimeter with an abab or abcb rhyme scheme.

Elegy

A poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.

Chorus

Also called a refrain; a line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse.

Persona

The way a person behaves and talks with others that causes them to be seen as a particular kind of person; the image or personality presented to other people.

Anticipation Guide

A series of questions that students respond to (usually by marking 'Agree' or 'Disagree') before a unit begins, which they re-evaluate after the lesson to reflect on their learning.

Semantic feature analysis

A strategy using a grid to help students explore relationships among sets of concepts, enhancing comprehension and vocabulary skills.

Reciprocal teaching

An instructional activity where students act as the teacher in small reading groups, guiding discussion using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting.

Classic Haiku

A traditional poetic form with five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the third line.

Alliteration

The use of words that begin with the same sound near one another.

Personification

The attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things.

Iambic pentameter

A metrical line in poetry consisting of five feet, where each foot (an iamb) consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Metaphor

A word or phrase for one thing that is used to refer to another thing to show or suggest similarity, or an object, activity, or idea used as a symbol of something else.

Assonance

The use of words near one another that have the same or very similar vowel sounds.

Denotation

The literal definition of a word.

Connotation

Notions suggested by or associated with a word that go beyond its explicit, denoted meaning.

Epigram

A short and clever poem or saying.

Euphemism

A mild or pleasant word or phrase used instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive.

Mock epic

A work that adopts the elevated style and conventions of the epic to treat trivial subjects, usually achieving a satirical effect.

Dramatic monologue

A form where lines are spoken by a character whose personality, motives, and circumstances shape the way the story is told and can be inferred from it.

Testimonial

A strategy where a celebrity, an expert, or a satisfied customer endorses a product or an idea.

Gothic fiction

A type of fiction that makes use of the grotesque, violent, mysterious, and supernatural.

Satire

A way of using humor to expose the foolishness, weaknesses, or bad qualities of a person, government, or society.

Irony

The use of words to mean the opposite of what is really thought, or a strange/funny situation where things happen opposite to what was expected.

Understatement

A statement that presents something as smaller, less important, or less intense than it really is.

Hyperbole

An exaggeration; language that describes something as better or worse than it really is.

Relative clause

A dependent clause containing a subject and verb that functions like an adjective to give more information about a noun.

Passive voice

A grammatical construction where the noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence appears as the subject.

Third person, limited

A point of view where the narrator is able to see into the mind and feelings of only a single character.

Third person, omniscient

A point of view where the narrator knows everything; all thoughts, feelings, and actions of all characters may be revealed.

Third person Objective

A point of view where the narrator can only relate what is seen or heard, leaving characters' internal thoughts and feelings to be inferred from their words and actions.

Comma splice

A grammatical style error involving the use of a comma to join two independent clauses without a coordinating conjunction.

Allusion

A statement that refers to something without mentioning it directly; an implied or indirect reference in literature.

Simile

A phrase that uses the words 'like' or 'as' to describe someone or something by comparing it with something else that is similar.

Metonym

A figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated.

Absurdist

A philosophy and artistic style based on the belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless, and that the search for order brings an individual into conflict with the universe.

Parallelism

The fact of being similar in development or form; repeated syntactical similarities introduced for rhetorical effect.

Dangling participle

A participle intended to modify a noun that is not actually present in the text.

Pronoun shift

An error that occurs when a writer begins by using a particular type of pronoun and then shifts abruptly to a different type.

Gerund

A verb ending with '-ing' that functions as a noun in a sentence.

Participial phrase

A phrase consisting of a participle and its modifiers, objects, or predicate words that always functions as an adjective phrase modifying a noun or pronoun.

Holistic rubric

A general evaluation rubric that lists three to five levels of performance along with a broad description of the characteristics defining each level.

Analytic rubric

A scoring tool that lists critical dimensions of performance and describes levels of proficiency for each dimension, providing detailed feedback.

Socratic seminar

A formal, text-based discussion where students listen closely, think critically, and articulate responses to open-ended questions asked by the leader.

Think-pair-share

A collaborative learning strategy where students think individually about a topic or question and then share ideas with classmates.

Memoir

A form of narrative writing distinguished by focusing on one or more significant life events of the writer.

Paralanguage

Elements of speech—such as prosody, pitch, volume, and intonation—that suggest meaning or convey emotion and cannot be relayed in written discourse.

Primary source

A document or physical object written or created during the time under study that offers an inside view of an event.

Secondary source

A source that interprets, analyzes, or synthesizes primary sources, existing one or more steps removed from the event under study.

Jigsaw

A small-group discussion method in which students read a specific portion of a text and teach its contents to members of other small groups.

Code-switching

A linguistic move defined as the ability to modify one's language according to the audience and purpose.

Synecdoche

A figure of speech involving the naming of a part of something to refer to the whole thing (or vice versa).

Prosody

The rhythm and pattern of sounds of poetry and language.