Literary Terms

The environment or surrounding in which an event or story takes place.

• mood
• external conflict
• setting
• plot

Tags

CCSS.L.8.6

CCSS.L.9-10.6

CCSS.W.11-12.2D

CCSS.W.8.2D

CCSS.W.9-10.2D

Actions, dialogue, and narrative description that reveal a sense of a character's personality to the reader.

• Setting
• Characterization
• Personalization
• Flashback

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

Where a writer/narrator gives an advance hint of what is going to happen later on in the story. Any event, action, dialogue or thought that gives a clue to what is going to happen.

• irony
• flashback
• foreshadowing
• theme

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

When an author interrupts the chronological sequence of a story by inserting past events. 

• flashback
• foreshadowing
• flashshadowing
• foreback

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.11-12.5

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.5

writing that uses like or as to compare two unlike things

• simile
• personification
• compare/contrast
• alliteration

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

the moment in the story when the action reaches its greatest conflict

• climax
• rising action
• falling action
• description

Tags

CCSS.L.11-12.4C

CCSS.L.6.4C

CCSS.L.7.4C

CCSS.L.8.4C

CCSS.L.9-10.4C

the perspective from which the story is told. Could be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person.

• climax
• point of view
• description
• opinion

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

the arrangements of events in a story

• climax
• point of view
• plot
• narrative

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.5

writing that compares to unlike things but does not use like or as

• metaphor
• alliteration
• resolution
• character development

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

writing in which an inanimate object or an abstract idea is given human characteristics

• personification
• metaphor
• setting
• theme

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.4

CCSS.RI.7.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4