Elements of Plot
The phase of the plot where the central conflict grows in intensity.
What is the rising action?
A shift in narrative chronology to an earlier point, sometimes even prior to the story's initial events.
What is a flashback?
The main character involved in conflict.
Who is the protagonist?
For example: Why did the protagonist show mercy to the antagonist? What is the author's purpose in creating his or her theme? Why did the author describe this scene using such dark language?
What is questioning?
A person, place, object, or idea.
What is a noun?
The phase of the plot after a pivotal event that progresses towards the conflict's finale.
What is the falling action?
Hints or clues an author provides regarding later events, details, or other elements in the story.
What is foreshadowing?
The character opposed to the main character in a conflict.
Who is the antagonist?
The active reading process most engaged by foreshadowing.
What is predicting?
A verb that aids in establishing the main verb's tense.
What is a helping verb?
The point at which the latent conflict of the exposition becomes active and begins growing in intensity (i.e. the boundary point between the exposition and rising action).
What is the inciting incident?
For example: Nicknaming an atomic bomb "Little Boy."
(Be specific in your response)
What is verbal irony?
A conflict that involves resolving complex emotions, making a difficult decision, or facing a "no-win" dilemma.
What is an internal conflict?
Making judgments of quality, effectiveness of storytelling, and relevance and relatability of characters and theme.
What is evaluating?
A verb that lacks a direct object.
What is an intransitive verb?
For example: A lone soldier in a war zone believes an enemy squad is closing on his position. He looks at the picture of his wife and child, preparing to die in a valiant last stand. He turns the corner to face the enemies and instead find an allied rescue team.
What is an anticlimax?
For example: The audience knows that the boy taking Carrie to the prom is only doing so because his friends intend to dump pig's blood on her as a vengeful prank, but Carrie is happily going with him thinking he likes her.
What is dramatic irony?
This conflict type generally does not feature either a person or groups of people as the antagonist.
What is person vs. nature?
This is the active reading process most closely engaged with allusions.
What is connecting?
A part of speech that demonstrates a relationship of time, location, or belonging between a verb and a noun or between two nouns.
What is a preposition?
Respond to either one of the following.
The more formal name of the plot pyramid.
or
A more technical/formal name for the resolution of a conflict
or
Denouement
For example: (from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird) Miss Maudie attacks the crab grass in her yard like a soldier at the Second Battle of the Marne.
What is an allusion?
A conflict that begins, develops, reaches a turning point, and resolves in the course of the development of a larger conflict.
What is a secondary or minor conflict or subplot?
This active reading process is often the most necessary to understand narrative poetry because of the form's heavy reliance on imagery (vivid descriptions of action) to convey its meaning.
What is visualizing?
(Send your captain to the board to diagram the following sentence)
The poor man was eating rice at lunchtime.
__man____|_was_eating_____|__rice__
\The \poor | \at_lunchtime_