Literary Terms
The main thing the author wants you to know when you read something.
Central Idea
Sub Heading
The pattern of a series of events that a story follows.
Plot
Located at the top of beginning of an article to identify the topic of the article.
Heading
Restating the main idea and supporting details in your own words.
Summary
A character's qualities- expressions, personality, and physical traits.
Character traits.
This type of text is thicker than usual and is used to emphasize something.
Boldface
A logical guess that is made using the readers own background knowledge and the knowledge they obtained from the story.
Inference
A list of topics or headings with page numbers, usually located at the front or beginning of a piece.
Table of Contents
How the character changes throughout a story.
Character Development
The reason why a character does something or thinks something in a story.
Character Motivation
These letters are slanted and are often used to emphasize or set words off from the rest.
Italics
Using material, examples, and direct quotes from a story.
Citing Text Evidence
A list of key terms with their definitions, usually found at the back.
Words and phrases surrounding an unknown word, that can help you to determine the meaning of the unknown word.
Context Clues
A comparison of two unlike things that have similar qualities. Does NOT use like or as.
Metaphor
Usually under a picture or image to give the reader some background on what the image is showing.
Caption
Sensory details or figurative language that is used to create abstractions or illicit emotion.
Imagery
An alphabetical list of important terms or concepts and the page numbers where they can be found, usually located at the back of the book.
Index
Details, words, and phrases that appeal to the five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting
Sensory Language
A feeling of building tension and curiosity that makes you want to keep reading a story.
Suspense
Additional information that is set in a box off to the side of a text.
Sidebar
A clash between what is expected to happen, and what actually happens. This can be in the form of exaggeration or sarcasm.
Irony
Visual tools in an article like photos, graphs, or images. They can be printed or hand drawn.
Graphic Aids
Something that stands for something beyond itself. It can be a person, place, object, animal, or activity.
Symbol