Genre Elements and Narrative Features
Personal narratives are written in this point of view, using pronouns like I, me, and my.
What is first-person point of view?
A comparison between two unlike things using the words "like" or "as".
What is a simile?
In The Prince of Los Cocuyos, author Richard Blanco shares his family's unique traditions while celebrating this holiday.
What is Thanksgiving?
A complete sentence must have a subject and a verb, and express a complete thought. A sentence missing one of these is called this.
What is a sentence fragment?
EX: "When we got to the museum"
Continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulty, obstacles, or failure.
What is perseverance?
Unlike fictional stories, a personal narrative is this overall type of genre because it describes real events from a person’s life.
What is nonfiction?
Giving human traits, actions, or emotions to non-human objects or animals.
What is personification?
In excerpts from My Story, this famous activist describes growing up in the segregated South and experiencing unfair conditions
Who is Rosa Parks?
When formatting spoken dialogue, punctuation marks like commas and periods should go in this position relative to the quotation marks.
What is inside the quotation marks?
Clues found within surrounding sentences that help a reader figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
What are context clues?
Details that appeal to sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell in order to create mental images are known as these.
What are sensory details?
A comparison between two things by stating that one thing is another, without using "like" or "as".
What is a metaphor?
In Step by Step, Bertie Bowman recounts leaving his home farm to pursue his dreams in this major U.S. city.
What is Washington, D.C.?
Joining two independent clauses with only a comma creates this common grammatical error.
What is a comma splice (or run-on sentence)?
The enforced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment (as described in Rosa Parks's story).
What is segregation?
When two or more characters talk to each other in a narrative, it is called this, and it must be enclosed in quotation marks.
What is dialogue?
The overall attitude or emotion an author conveys through their choice of words (e.g., joyful, serious, or critical).
What is author's tone?
In A View of the Earth, astronaut Michael Massimino shares the challenges and emotions he experienced during a mission for this space agency.
What is NASA?
Transition words like first, then, meanwhile, and finally serve this purpose in a narrative.
What is showing sequence or time/order of events?
To draw a conclusion or make an educated guess based on evidence from the text and prior knowledge.
What is to infer (or an inference)?
The order in which events happen in a story—from beginning to end—is known as this type of sequence.
What is chronological (or logical) sequence?
An author's personal perspective or stance on a topic based on their experiences and background.
What is point of view / perspective?
In Hello, My Name Is, author Jennifer Lou presents her personal narrative using charts, graphs, and drawings, which makes it this specific visual style of essay.
What is a graphic essay?
Identify the error: "When we got to the museum. We saw the giant dinosaur skeleton."
What is a sentence fragment ("When we got to the museum")?
Words that evoke strong imagery or action in writing, preferred over weak, generic choices like went or said.
What are vivid/strong verbs and descriptive adjectives?