Unit 1 Test
Theme
Definition: The underlying message, lesson, or big idea in a story. It’s what the author wants readers to learn or understand.
Example: In a story about friendship, the theme might be “true friends support each other.”
How to Find It: Look for repeated ideas, conflicts, or changes in the main character.
Plot
Definition: The sequence of events that make up a story.
Five Parts:
Exposition: Introduction of characters, setting, and background.
Rising Action: Series of events that build tension.
Climax: The turning point or most intense moment.
Falling Action: Events leading to resolution.
Resolution: How the story ends.
Suspense
Definition: A feeling of excitement, tension, or uncertainty about what will happen next.
How to Identify: Authors create suspense with foreshadowing, cliffhangers, or slowing down the action.
Character Traits
Definition: The qualities, attitudes, and values that a character shows through their actions, thoughts, and words.
Examples: Kind, brave, selfish, curious.
Finding Traits: Pay attention to how the character behaves and what others say about them.
Inferences
Definition: Making a guess based on clues in the text and your own knowledge.
Internal vs. External Conflicts
Internal Conflict: A struggle within the character’s mind, like making a tough decision.
External Conflict: A struggle between a character and an outside force, like another person, society, or nature.
Definition: The author’s attitude or feeling toward the subject or audience. Tone can be serious, humorous, sad, excited, etc.
How to Identify Tone: Look at the author’s word choices, descriptions, and dialogue. Ask yourself, "How does the author seem to feel about this topic?"
Example: If an author describes a setting as "dark and silent, with shadows lurking," the tone might be eerie or suspenseful.
Connotation
Definition: The feelings or emotions that a word suggests, beyond its literal meaning. Connotations can be positive, negative, or neutral.
How to Identify Connotation: Think about whether the word makes you feel positively, negatively, or neutrally.
Example: The word “cheap” has a negative connotation (it might imply poor quality), while “affordable” has a more positive connotation (implying good value).
Poet's Message
Definition: The main idea, theme, or feeling the poet wants to convey to readers through their poem. Often similar to the author's message, but in poetry, it may also be expressed through imagery, rhythm, or metaphor.
How to Identify the Poet's Message: Pay attention to the images, symbols, and emotions in the poem, as well as the tone and word choice. Ask, "What does the poet want readers to think or feel?"
Example: In a poem about nature’s beauty, the poet’s message might be to appreciate the peacefulness and simplicity of the natural world.
Compound Sentences- Compound Sentences contain a comma and a coordinating conjunction word that shows the relationship between the two parts of the sentence.
Coordinating Conjunctions:
When writing, make sure to have the proper coordinating conjunction to connect the two independent clauses.
Example: We went to the store to buy ingredients for dinner, and bought a toy while we were there.
And is the proper coordinating conjunction in this sentence. It shows the right relationship between the two things. The subject did both of them.
Coordinating Adjectives- When two adjectives (describing words) are used to describe the same thing, there must be a comma between them.
Example: The glittering, cold snow rested on the mountain top.
There must be a comma between glittering and cold because they are both being used to describe the snow.
Redundancy- When writing, we want to be careful to not repeat ourselves, even when we don’t mean to. When we see repetition or unneeded words in our writing we want to remove them.
Example: The large in size and heavy in weight suitcase fell down the stairs when she let go and stopped holding on to it.
In size and in weight are already implied when we say the words large and heavy. Let go and stopped holding on mean the same thing, so we don’t need both of them.
Cross out the unnecessary words in the sentences below or rewrite the sentence without redundancies.
The brand new inventions that had never been done before were presented at the show.
She finished her project at 3 a.m. in the morning, after the project was finished it was finally done.
The dancers put on a show for a bunch of people to see in order for the people to want to donate money for the new dance studio.
Concise Language- When writing, we want to use fewer words to help our reader understand what we are saying.
For example:
Not concise: He put on a show at the Target Center and then put on a show at US Bank Stadium.
Concise: He performed at the Target Center and the US Bank Stadium.
Nonrestrictive Clauses- When we want to include extra information in writing we can include nonrestrictive clauses. To correctly write a nonrestrictive clause we must put a comma before it (and after it if it comes in the middle of the sentence) to separate it from the rest of the sentence.
Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, which came to be known as one of the most famous and necessary inventions for decades.
The underlined section is the nonrestrictive (extra) clause.
Underline the nonrestrictive clause in each of the following sentences.
My sister, who just graduated from college, is moving to a new city.
The book, which I borrowed from the library, was incredibly interesting.
Our dog, who loves to play fetch, chased the ball across the yard.
My math teacher, who has been teaching for 20 years, always makes class fun.
Capitalization- Don’t forget proper capitalization rules when writing.