9Th -10Th Grade Vocabulary

9th -10th grade vocabulary

Mrs. Reese

2012-2013

Directions: Yellow words are for 9th graders. 10th graders are responsible for both yellow AND green vocabulary.

PROSE

Artistic unity / That condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose. In an artistically unified work nothing is included that is irrelevant to the central purpose, nothing is omitted that is essential to it, and the parts are arrange in the most effective order for the achievement of that purpose.
Commercial (pop) fiction / Fiction written to meet the taste of a wide popular audience and relying usually on tested formulas for satisfying such taste
Literary fiction / Fiction written with serious artistic intentions, providing an imagined experience yielding authentic insights into some significant aspect of life

PROSE GENRES

allegory / A narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating each literal term to a fixed, corresponding abstract idea or moral principle: usually, the ulterior meanings belong to a preexisting system of ideas or principles.
Didactic writing / Poetry, fiction, or drama having as a primary purpose to teach or preach
Fantasy / A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of known reality
Satire / A kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice

STRUCTURE

Structure / The sequential arrangement of plot elements in fiction or drama
Plot / The sequence of incidents or events of which a story or play is composed
Plot manipulation / A situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceding action or by the characters involved
Exposition / The background information for the story
Rising action / That development of plot in a story or play that precedes and leads up to the climax
Climax / The turning point or high point in a plot
Falling action / The segment of the plot that comes between the climax and the conclusion
Denouement / The portion of a plot that reveals the final outcome of its conflicts or the solution of its mysteries

STYLE

Tone / The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work
Sarcasm / Bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed
Surprise / An unexpected turn in the development of a plot
Suspense / That quality in a story or play that makes the reader eager to discover what happens next and how it will end
Sentimentality / Unmerited or contrived tender felling; that quality in a work that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification of reality
Poeticizing / Writing that uses immoderately heightened or distended language to sway the reader’s feelings
Mystery / An unusual set of circumstances for which the reader craves an explanation; used to create suspense
Editorializing / Writing that departs from the narrative or dramatic mode and instructs the reader how to think or feel about the events of a story or the behavior of a character

LITERARY DEVICES & TERMS

Symbol / Something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, or action that in addition to its literal meaning suggests other meanings as well
Allusion / A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history
Moral / A rule of conduct or maxim for living expressed or implied as the “point” of a literary work
Theme / The central idea or unifying generalization implied or stated by a literary work
Setting / The context in time and place in which the story occurs
chance / The occurrence of an event that has no apparent cause in antecedent events or in predisposition of character
Coincidence / The chance concurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them
Conflict / A clash of actions, desires, ideas, or goals in the plot of a story or drama. Man v. Man; Man v. nature; Man v. society; Man v. fate; Man v. self

CHARACTERIZATION

Character / Any of the persons presented in a story or play
Characterization / The various literary means by which characters are presented
Protagonist / The central character in a story or play
Antagonist / Any force in a story or play that is in conflict with the protagonist. An antagonist may be another person, an aspect of the physical or social environment, or a destructive element in the protagonist’s own nature
Developing (dynamic) character / A character who during the course of a work undergoes a permanent change in some distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits or outlook
Flat character / A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are summed up in one or two traits
Foil character / A minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character; most often the contrast is complimentary to the major character
Round character / A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are complex and many-sided
Static character / A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a work as at the beginning
Stock character / A stereotyped character: one whose nature is familiar to us from prototypes in previous literature
Direct presentation of character / The method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like, or has someone else in the story do so
Indirect presentation of character / The method of characterization in which the author shows us a character in action, compelling us to infer what the character is like from what is said and done by the character
Motivation / The incentives or goals that, in combination with the inherent natures of characters, cause them to behave as they do. In commercial fiction actions may be unmotivated, insufficiently motivated, or implausibly motivated
Epiphany / A moment or event in which a character achieves a spiritual insight into life or into her or his own circumstances
Dilemma / A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable

POINT OF VIEW

Point of view / The angle of vision from which a story is told
Omniscient point of view / The author tells the story using 3rd person, knowing all and free to tell anything, including what the characters are thinking or feeling and why they act as they do
Third-person limited point of view / The author tells the story using the 3rd person, but is limited to a complete knowledge of one character in the story and tells us only what that one character thinks, fells, sees, or hears
First-person point of view / The story is told by one of its characters, using the 1st person
Objective (dramatic) point of view / The author tells the story using the third person, but is limited to reporting what the characters say or do; the author doesn’t interpret their behavior or tell us their private thoughts or feelings
Stream of consciousness / Narrative that presents the private thoughts of a character without commentary or interpretation by the author

IRONY

Irony / A situation or a use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy
Verbal irony / A figure of speech in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant
Dramatic irony / An incongruity or discrepancy between what a character says or thinks and what the reader knows to be true (or between what a character perceives and what the author intends the reader to perceive)
Irony of situation/situational irony / A situation in which there is an incongruity between appearance and reality, or between expectation and fulfillment, or between the actual situation and what would seem appropriate

ENDINGS

Happy ending / An ending in which events turn out well for a sympathetic protagonist
Indeterminate ending / An ending in which the central problem or conflict is left unresolved
Unhappy ending / An ending that turns out unhappily for a sympathetic protagonist
Surprise ending / A completely unexpected revelation or turn of plot at the conclusion of a story or play

Vocabulary words from:

Arp, T.R., & Johnson, G. Perrine’s literature: Structure, sound, and sense. (8th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt.