ELA
Central Idea
A central idea is what a text or section of a text is mostly about. A central idea can normally be stated in a single sentence. A central idea is specific to the text at hand, whereas a theme is a universal message that can apply to multiple texts.
Flashback
A flashback is a scene that takes place before a story begins. Flashbacks interrupt the chronological order of the main story to take the reader back in time to the past event’s of a character’s life. Authors may include flashbacks in a story as a character's memories, dreams, or full accounts of past events. This narrative technique is often used in movies and TV as well as novels. Flashbacks are often used to give the reader background information on a character’s origins, past, or backstory.
Primary Source
A primary source is a first hand account of an event or time period that is written by someone that lived the experience.
Secondary Source
A secondary source is an account of a historical event that is typically written by someone that was not there, and takes information from primary sources.
Mood, or atmosphere, is the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage. The mood is often suggested by descriptive details and impact by the author’s use of different literary devices. Authors aim to create a strong and clear mood in stories because it can create an emotional response in their readers that helps hook them into the story.
Figurative language
Writing or speech not meant to be interpreted literally. It is often used to create vivid impressions by setting up comparisons between dissimilar things. Some frequent figures of speech are metaphors, similes, and personification.
Tone
The tone of a text is the writer’s attitude toward their audience and/or subject. Tone can be established or suggested by the author’s word choice and use of literary devices. Tone helps communicate the author’s thoughts, opinions, and attitudes about the topic.
Bias
Bias is a person’s personal beliefs that have an impact on the way that they view the world around them.
Innovation
An innovation is a new idea or invention that improves upon what previously was thought or used.
Evidence
Evidence is information from sources used to defend a claim or support an argument.
Personification
A type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics. Personification is used to help the reader connect with the object that is being personified. Personification helps make the descriptions of non-human objects more vivid, attention-grabbing, and emotion-evoking. Personification of ideas and objects can also emphasize their power and impact.
Plot
The plot is the sequence of events in a literary work. In narrative stories and poems, the plot involves both characters and a central conflict. The plot often follows this order: exposition, inciting incident, conflict, climax, rising action, falling action, resolution.
Geography
the physical features of an area on earth’s surface
Reliability
Reliability is an understanding about the ability to trust a source based on the perspective and context of it.
Repetition
Repetition is the use of any element of language - a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause, a sentence - more than once. In both prose and poetry, repetition is used for emphasis of an idea and musical effects.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing occurs when the author provides suggestions, clues, or warnings about events to come. Foreshadowing creates suspense and impacts the mood of the story as it keeps readers wondering about what will happen next. Foreshadowing could happen through dialogue, symbols, weather motifs, character feelings, etc.
Chronological Order
Chronological order is the order in which the events occurred, from first to last. Chronological order is often used in biographies, historical accounts, etc. Authors use chronological order because it is easy for the reader to follow the events of a text or story.
Government
A government is a leadership organization that creates laws and structure for a society.
Environment
the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives.
Economic
the system of how money is made and used within a particular country or region.
Imagery
The descriptive and figurative language the author uses to create a picture in the mind of the reader. These pictures or images create details of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, or movement. Imagery helps readers to experience scenes, events, settings, and characters in a richer way. These writing strategies help the reader to live in the story through their senses.
Similes / Metaphors
A simile is a figure of speech that uses like or as to compare two things. A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two things without using like or as. One thing is spoken of as though it were something else. In general, similes and metaphors are used to spark the reader’s imagination by painting vivid images, evoking emotions or memories, clarifying and explaining ideas through comparison, and/or precisely describing an idea or subject.
Political
relating to the government or the public affairs of a country.
Compare and Contrast
Compare and contrast is where the similarities and differences of two or more things are explored. Historians use compare and contrast to help analyze multiple events at the same time by examining how they are similar and different.
Cause and Effect
When an event or several events (the cause) lead to, make happen, or result in, an event or events that follow (the effect). Cause and Effect can also be referred to as what caused something else to happen, or the reason why something happened.