| A | B |
|---|
| inference | guess/conclusion drawn from story clues and your own knowledge |
| genre | category of literature |
| narrator | storyteller |
| protagonist | central character in a story |
| antagonist | character opposing the protagonist |
| internal conflict | struggle within a character's mind |
| external conflict | person vs. person, nature, or society |
| 1st person point of view | narrator "I" tells the story |
| 3rd person point of view | narrator stays outside the story and tells it |
| rising action | complications/events that move toward a climax |
| turning point/climax | most exciting moment, when the outcome of a story is decided |
| resolution | clsong of story, outcome decided |
| theme | insight or comment on life or human nature |
| indirect characterization | we learn about character by their actions, words, others' reactions and words |
| direct characterization | writer's direct description of character |
| exposition | gives information about conflict, setting, point of view |
| anecdote | brief story told to illustrate a point |
| short story | short fictional prose narrative |
| prose | any writing that is not poetry |
| irony | a twist, contrast between expectation and reality |
| novel | long fictional story |
| dialect | way of speaking characteristic of a certain geographic area |
| dialog | conversation between two or more characters |
| allusion | reference to a person, place or event from literature, arts, history... |
| setting | time and place of a story |
| epilogue | brief closing to a piece of literature |
| foreshadowing | clues/hints to suggest events that will occur later in the story |
| flashback | interruption in action of a plot to show events that happened at an earlier time |
| simile | comparison using like or as |
| metaphor | comparison without like or as |
| alliteration | repeating first consonant |
| assonance | repeating vowel sound |
| personification | human traits given to nonliving things |
| onomatopoeia | "sound words" fizz, swish, sizzle, etc. |
| idiom | commonly used expression with different literal meaning |
| hyperbole | extreme exaggeration |
| couplet | two consecutive lines that rhyme |
| free verse | poetry without rhyme scheme |
| ode | poem that pays tribute to person, object, era, idea |
| elegy | type of ode, pays tribute to person/idea that has died |
| epic poem | about a great hero |
| narrative poem | poem that tells a story |
| refrain | repeating word or line in poem that helps establish rhythm |
| ballad | poem that is meant to be sung, simple vocabulary, often uses refrain |
| fiction | prose that is not real |
| nonfiction | factual prose |
