House on Mango Street Vocabulary

Vignette

A short, evocative piece of writing that often has some qualities of both poetry and prose

Lens

A style of analysis or way of reading

Reader Response Lens

Reading a text and making connections to your own experiences, feelings, memories, and culture

Formalist Lens

Analyzing how a text is written—noticing literary devices and writing choices, then analyzing how they all work together to make meaning

Youth Lens

Analyzing what a text, film, or movie says about being young

Metaphor

A comparison between two things for the purpose of demonstrating an idea, emotion, or image

Simile

A metaphor that uses like or as

Personification

Metaphors that use human qualities to describe nonhuman things

Imagery

Descriptions that engage the five senses

Syntax

Structure of sentences–such as used intentional fragments or run-ons

Colloquial Language

Conversational, informal speech; slang

Repetition

Intentional repetition of a word or phrase

Unreliable Narrator

The person telling the story might have an incomplete view of the world or might be untrustworthy in some other way.

Theme

The message underneath a work of art (literature, film, poetry)

Symbol

An object, idea, or action that represents a deeper, abstract concept

Othering / To Other

View or treat (a person or group of people) as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself

Indeterminate Element

A portion of a poem or story that is ultimately mysterious, or up for interpretation

Diction

Word choice

Connotation / Connotes

The implied meaning of a word based on context

Denotation/ Denotes

The literal, dictionary definition of a word

Lesko's Characteristics of Adolescence

The stage between adulthood and childhood when young people show signs of being rebellious, hormonal, peer-oriented, conformist, popularity-driven, and concerned with romantic relationships. She argues that by looking at someone's age, we can determine their preferences, bodies, behaviors, and disposition.

Characterization / Characterize

The creation or construction of a fictional character

Social Construct / Socially Constructed

An idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society

Unreliable Narrator

The creation or construction of a fictional character. "The author uses an unreliable narrator, whose perspective distorts the actual events to help us understand how children deal with trauma."

Intentional Fragment

An intentional fragment is simply an incomplete sentence. It is intentional because the author chooses to use a fragment instead of a complete sentence

Allusion

An indirect reference to another cultural artifact (film, novel, story, song, tradition, etc)