English Literary Terms

Preview The text

Before you read look at the text features. Text features like titles and subtitles

Connect with the text

Relate to personal experience and knowledge. Use your prior knowledge

Ask questions

Inquire about situations, consider motives of the characters. try to figure out meaning.

Make predictions

Try to guess what will happen next.

Draw conclusions

make inferences to connect ideas and events

Challenge the text

question the characters behavior. dispute situations or events

Identify universal message

Reflect on the meaning of the text and the larger significance

First person

The narrator is a character and refers to themselves as I or Me

Third person omniscient

Narrator is not one of the characters and is all knowing (Knows many characters)

Third person limited

Narrator is not one of the characters and only focuses on thoughts and feelings of one character.

Direct

Author tells the reader a characters personality

Indirect

Author shows characters personality through dialogue,actions, etc.

Character trait

Adjective that describes a characters appearance or personality

Protagonist

Main character, drives action, not always good guy

Antagonist

The force that works against the protagonist

Unreliable character

Someone who is not always telling the whole truth

situational irony

when a character or reader expects one thing but another thing happens

Verbal irony

When a character says something they do not mean

Dramatic irony

The audience knows something the characters does not know

Theme

Life lesson that an author wants readers to learn by the end of the story

Setting

Time-year, time of day, place, season, weather, societal conditions, mood/atmosphere

Imagery

Details your 5 senses that help readers see the story in their minds

Suspence

Excitement or tension that readers fell well they wait for the story to end or conflict is resolved

Mood

The feeling created for the reader (pay attention to setting)

Symbol

A person, place, object, or activity that stands for something beyond itself

5 kinds of conflict

Person V.S. Person, Person V.S. Self, Person V.S. Society, Person V.S. Nature, Person V.S. Supernatural

Exposition

Introduces setting and characters

Rising Action

Makes conflict big/ builds suspense

Climax

Turning point, moment you can’t come back from

Falling Action

Eases suspense, reveals outcome

Resolution

Reveals outcome, sometimes ties down loose ends.