Lit Terms
It has a “surface story” and another story hidden underneath.
Allegory
a work of persuasion. You use it to convince others to agree with your claim or viewpoint when they have doubts or disagree.
Argument
a word’ or thing’s literal or main definition.
Denotation
a feeling or idea that a word has, in addition to its literal or main meaning.
Connotation
Rich, loaded, privileged, wealthy, affluent
Connotation
a conflict, problem, or situation with two possible solutions.
Dilemma
is a word or phrase using figurative language—language that has other meanings than its normal definition.
Figures of Speech
an idea, symbol, pattern, or character-type, in a story. It’s any story element that appears again and again in stories from cultures around the world and symbolizes something universal in the human experience.
Archetype
gives the audience hints or signs about the future. It suggests what is to come through imagery, language, and/or symbolism.
Foreshadowing
I know you think you’re going to sell all of those cookies, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch!
Figures of Speech
language used by poets, novelists, and other writers to create images in the mind of the reader.
Imagery
a restatement or rewording of a paragraph or text, in order to borrow, clarify, or expand on information without plagiarizing
Paraphrase
The central idea, topic, or point of a story, essay, or narrative
Theme
is basically a reference to something else. It’s when a writer mentions some other work, or refers to an earlier part of the current work.
Allusion
“pulling someone’s leg,” or tricking them for fun.
Idiom
is a literary technique in which two unrelated objects are compared for their shared qualities.
Analogy
is a phrase that conveys a figurative meaning different from the words used.
Idiom
when there are two contradicting meanings of the same situation, event, image, sentence, phrase, or story. In many cases, this refers to the difference between expectations and reality.
Irony
any language that helps an author or speaker achieve a particular purpose (usually persuasion, since rhetoric is typically defined as the art of persuasion).
Rhetorical Device
A time traveler goes back in time and murders his own great-grandfather.
Paradox
a statement that contradicts itself, or that must be both true and untrue at the same time.
Paradox
a brief summary that gives audiences an idea of what a composition is about.
Synopsis
refers to the “feel” of a piece of writing.
Tone
expresses the narrator or author’s emotions, attitude, tone and point of view through artful, well thought out use of word choice and diction.
Voice
Every choice you make is like spinning the wheel of fortune—sometimes you will get the result that you desire, while other times you will end up with something you always hoped to avoid.
Analogy