ELA Study Guide: Text Types, Diary Writing, Figurative Language, and Sentence Structures

Vocabulary flashcards covering text types, diary writing features, figurative language devices (similes, metaphors, and analogies), and sentence structures from the Grade 7 and 8 ELA Study Guide.

Narrative Text Type

A text type that tells a story, featuring characters, events, and plots, such as an account of a young explorer discovering a mysterious underground city.

Descriptive Text Type

A text type that portrays sensory details to convey the appearance, sounds, and atmosphere of a scene, person, or setting, such as a busy marketplace or a thick forest.

Persuasive Text Type

A text type written to convince or encourage readers to adopt a specific stance or take action, such as urging schools to adopt outdoor learning or recycling programs.

Informative Text Type

A text type focused on presenting facts and explaining concepts or phenomena, such as how earthquakes occur or the factual effects of climate change.

Instructional Text Type

A text type that gives sequential directions or procedural steps detailing how to complete an activity safely and accurately, often using transition words like first, next, and finally.

Diary Writing

A form of personal writing characterized by including a date, a first-person perspective, personal thoughts, emotions, reflections, and a distinct personal voice.

First-Person Perspective

A point of view used in personal reflections and diary entries where the narrator recounts experiences, thoughts, and emotions directly from their own vantage point.

Personal Voice

The distinct tone, individual emotion, and internal reflection expressed by a writer revealing their genuine feelings, attitudes, and reactions.

Simile

A figure of speech that compares two different things using connective words such as "like" or "as" (e.g., "as gentle as the morning breeze" or "ran like lightning").

Metaphor

A figure of speech that asserts a direct comparison between two unrelated things by stating one thing is another, without using "like" or "as" (e.g., "The classroom was a zoo" or "Time is a thief").

Analogy

A figure of speech that draws an extended comparison between two different relationships or systems to clarify an idea (e.g., "Just as a key opens a lock, knowledge opens doors to new opportunities").

Simple Sentence

A sentence consisting of a single independent clause that expresses a complete thought, containing a subject and a verb (e.g., "The students worked quietly in the library.").

Compound Sentence

A sentence containing two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction such as "and" or "but" (e.g., "Sara completed her homework, and she helped her younger brother.").

Complex Sentence

A sentence containing one independent clause and at least one dependent clause connected by a subordinating conjunction (e.g., "Although the weather was cold, the students continued their outdoor activities.").

Compound-Complex Sentence

A sentence containing at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause (e.g., "Because the experiment failed, the students changed their approach, and the teacher encouraged them to try again.").

Subordinating Conjunction

A linking word used to connect a dependent clause to an independent clause in a complex sentence, such as although, because, while, since, unless, or after.

Independent Clause

A group of words with a subject and a verb that expresses a complete thought and can stand alone as a sentence.

Dependent Clause

A group of words containing a subject and verb that begins with a subordinating conjunction and cannot stand alone as a complete sentence.