Key Question Words
Common characteristics, identify how things are alike or similar
Compare
To separate into parts and explain
Analyze
a category system that literature falls into based on specific conventions that develop to characterize the differences.
Hint: romantic comedy, horror, science fiction
Genre
Where/when a story takes place
Setting
When the author hints at actions that will come in the future
Foreshadowing
Characteristics that are not alike. Identify how things are different
Contrast
To prove points by using facts
Argue
A literary device that allows writers to show their audience specific events that happened before the current action of the story.
Flashback
How the writer feels about his subject that comes through based upon the types of words chosen.
Tone
A type of poem that has a specific rhyme and meter.
fourteen lines of iambic pentameter
Sonnet
Give a brief overview of the main points
summarize
The most exciting part of a story where all of the main conflict comes together
climax
A character or force that opposes the protagonist
Antagonist
How the reader feels about the story
Mood
A word that describes words that represent sounds
Onomatopoeia
ex. sshhh, chirp chirp
Present a clear picture of a person, place, thing or idea. Use details and sensory words!
Describe
An intentional reference to another literary work or piece of art that the reader should understand in order to make connections.
Allusion
ex. Chocolate is his Kryptonite
A concrete or physical object that represents an abstract concept.
Symbol
Character who is telling the story
Narrator
A figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another.
Metaphor
ex. Time is money
“Read between the lines”; the answer is not clearly stated in the passage. Use knowledge and experience to draw conclusions.
Infer
When authors give human traits to animals or some other lifeless object
Personification
An abstraction that represents the central idea of the story
Theme
Can be verbal, situational or dramatic and has the result of the meaning, situation or action being one thing but meaning something different.
Irony
figurative speech that compares two different things using "like" or "as"
simile
My shoes smell like garbage