Literary Terms and Concepts

Setting

• Where and when a story takes place.

• The main character's journey throughout the story.

• The underlying message or moral of the story.

• The sequence of events that make up the story.

Protagonist

• The main/leading character in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

• A character that opposes the main character in a story.

• A minor character that supports the protagonist.

• The setting where the story takes place.

Character Traits

• person's behavior and attitudes that make up personality; can be both good and bad.

• inherited physical characteristics that define appearance.

• skills and abilities acquired through experience and education.

• emotional responses that are consistent across different situations.

Turn Back (Rebuttal/Refutation)

• Demonstrating why the opposing view/counterargument is wrong.

• Supporting the opposing view with additional evidence.

• Ignoring the opposing view entirely.

• Agreeing with the opposing view to strengthen one's own argument.

First Person

• Using 'I' or 'we'.

• Referring to others in the third person.

• Describing actions in the past tense.

• Using 'you' or 'they'.

Transition Words

• Words that provide a connection between ideas, sentences, and paragraphs (first, second, last).

• Words that indicate a change in topic or subject.

• Words that are used to conclude an argument or discussion.

• Words that are only used in formal writing.

Alliteration

• Repetition of the same sound at the beginning of two or more words in a sentence or phrase.

• A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using 'like' or 'as'.

• The use of exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

• A literary device that involves the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words.

Compare/Contrast

• Author states what two things have that are the SAME (compare) and DIFFERENT (contrast).

• Author describes how two things are completely unrelated.

• Author explains the similarities between two things only.

• Author lists the differences between two things without comparison.

Person vs. Person Conflict

• Internal conflict within a single character.

• External conflict between TWO characters.

• Conflict between a character and society.

• Conflict between a character and nature.

Chronological Order

• Stories are told in order of time.

• Stories are told in random order.

• Stories are told in reverse order.

• Stories are told in alphabetical order.