Ninth Grade Literature and Composition

Terms to Review before the EOC

  1. Fiction: Writing that tells about imaginary characters and events, usually referring to novels and short stories.
  2. Drama: A story written to be performed by actors; a play.
  3. Poetry: Writing often divided into lines and stanzas with regular rhythmical patterns.
  4. Genre: A category or type of literature.
  5. Direct characterization: The author directly states a character’s traits.
  6. Indirect characterization: The author provides clues about a character by describing what a character looks like, does, and says, as well as how other characters react to him or her. The reader must draw conclusions.
  7. Setting: The time and place of a story’s action.
  8. Plot: The sequence of events in a story.
  9. Exposition: Introduces the setting, characters, and basic situation.
  10. Rising action: Events which lead to the climax of the story.
  11. Climax: The highest point of action in the story; the story’s turning point.
  12. Falling action: Events in the story that lead to the end of the conflict.
  13. Resolution/denouement: The end of the conflict and text.
  14. Foreshadowing: Clues that suggest events that have yet to occur.
  15. Flashback: A means by which an author presents material that occurred earlier than the present tense of the story.
  16. Conflict: A struggle between opposing forces.
  17. External conflict: The main character struggles against an outside force (man vs. man, society, nature, or machine).
  18. Internal conflict: A character is in conflict with him or herself (man vs. self).
  19. Point of view: The perspective, or outlook, from which a writer tells a story.
  20. First person: The narrator tells the story from his own point of view.
  21. Second person: The book itself addresses the reader, as if the reader is an active character in the book.
  22. Third person limited: Restricted to one character and observes only what he sees, hears, feels, or does.
  23. Third person omniscient: Narrator can see everything and everywhere, even relating the thoughts of all of the characters.
  24. Tone: The writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject.
  25. Mood: The atmosphere or feeling created in the reader.
  26. Theme: Central idea or message of a piece of literature, sometimes called the moral of the story, or the lesson.
  27. Imagery: Descriptive language that appeals to the five senses.
  28. Symbol: A person, place, or thing used to represent something else.
  29. Dramatic irony: The audience or the reader knows something that a character does not.
  30. Situational irony: An event occurs that contradicts the expectations of the reader.
  31. Verbal irony: Saying one thing but meaning another; sarcasm.
  32. Dialogue: A conversation between characters that may reveal their traits and advance the action of the narrative.
  33. Rhyme: The repetition of terminal sounds in two or more words.
  34. Alliteration: The repetition of one initial consonant sound, in more than one word.
  35. Narrative: A story.
  36. Simile: A comparison of two unlike things that uses the word “like” or “as.”
  37. Metaphor: A comparison of two unlike things without using the words “like” or “as.”
  38. Personification: Attributing human characteristics to something nonhuman.