| A | B |
|---|
| Narrative Structure | a textual organization based on sequences of connected events usually presented in a straightforward chronological framework |
| Dramatic Structure | a textual organization based on a series of scenes, each of which is presented vividly and in detail |
| Discursive Structure | a textual organization based on the form of a treatise, argument, or essay |
| Imitative Structures | a textual organization that mirrors as exactly as possible the structure of something that already exists as an object and can be seen. |
| Reflective/Meditative Structures | a textual organization based on the pondering of a subject, theme or event and letting the mind play with it, skipping from one sound to another or to related thoughts or objects as the mind receives them. |
| Terza Rima | a verse form consisting of three-line stanzas in which the second line of each stanza rhymes with the first and the third of the next. |
| Blank Verse | the verse form most like everyday human speech; blank verse consists of unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. Many of Shakespeare's plays are this verse form. |
| Assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words with different endings - for example "The death of the poet was kept from his poems" |
| Ballad stanza | a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain that alternates four-beat and three-beat lines. Lines 1 and 3 are unrhymed iambic pentameter, and lines 2 and 4 are rhymed iambic pentameter. |
| Petrarchan Sonnet | a sonnet form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines (octave) and a second section of six lines (sestet) usually following the abbaabbacdecde rhyme scheme or, more loosely, an abbacddc pattern |
| Shakespearean Sonnet | a sonnet form that divides the poem into three units of four lines each and a final unit of two lines. The classic rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg |
| Spenserian stanza | a stanza that consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter followed by a ninth line of iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc |
