The Big Picture
This term refers to the universal life lesson, moral, or message that an author wants the reader to take away from a fictional story.
What is theme?
This specific text structure explains how or why something happened, focusing on the triggers and the resulting outcomes.
What is Cause and Effect?
To find explicit evidence in a text to support your answer, you are looking for information that is stated in this way.
What is directly (or word-for-word)?
"The calendar pages dropped like autumn leaves" is an example of this type of figurative language, which compares two things using "like" or "as."
What is a simile?
This point of view features a narrator who is not in the story but knows the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of every character in the text.
What is third-person omniscient?
When writing an objective summary of a text, you must include the central idea and key supporting details, but you must strictly leave this out.
What are personal opinions, feelings, or judgments?
What is the mathematical-style formula used to determine the central idea of an informational text?
What is Topic + Author’s Main Point = Central Idea?
Identify the meaning of the bolded word: The toddler was completely intractable during the long flight; no matter what snacks his parents offered, he refused to sit down or stop crying.
What is stubborn (or unmanageable)?
Contrast the definitions of mood and tone.
What is tone is the author's attitude; mood is the reader's feeling?
In poetry, a group of lines arranged together is called a stanza, which is the poetic equivalent of this structural unit in prose writing.
What is a paragraph?
Read this scenario: A character spends months training for a marathon but breaks his ankle the day before the race. Instead of giving up, he spends the next year successfully coaching a youth running team. What is the theme?
What is resilience (or overcoming adversity to help others)?
Read the text: Due to a sudden drop in temperature, the lake froze over instantly. Consequently, the local migratory birds were cut off from their primary food source. What text structure is used?
What is Cause and Effect?
Read the text: Elena looked at the envelope on the counter. She picked it up, held it to the light, and then quickly shoved it to the bottom of her backpack, breathing heavily. Infer Elena's feelings.
What is she is anxious, scared, or nervous about it?
Read the text: The old grandfather clock stood like a stern sentry in the corner. Its heavy brass pendulum sliced through the silence. What specific tone does this personification create?
What is a strict, cold, or unyielding tone?
An editorial states: "Kids sit all day. Exercise makes people happy. Therefore, we need an extra hour of recess." Why is this argument insufficient?
What is it lacks scientific data, statistics, or expert facts?
A passage contains two paragraphs on Thomas Edison's inventions and two paragraphs on his intense business rivalries. To remain objective, what must a summary do?
What is include both his achievements and his rivalries equally?
A text contains one paragraph on an invasive beetle's biology and three paragraphs on how it destroys local timber economies. What is the overall central idea?
What is the beetle's biology makes it a threat to timber economies?
An author writes an article arguing that cell phones should be banned in schools, but they only interview one angry teacher. Why is this argument weak?
What is the evidence is biased and not sufficient?
A poem shifts its setting from a sunlit, bustling city square in Stanza 1 to a silent, fog-covered alleyway in Stanza 2. How does the mood shift?
What is from cheerful/energetic to tense/mysterious?
Read a poem where an old oak tree talks and laments the arrival of bulldozers. Why did the author choose a tree as the speaker instead of a human?
What is to create more empathy for the environment being destroyed?
King Midas loses his daughter due to his greed for gold. A modern CEO loses his family because he works too much for money. What core truth do both settings prove?
What is greed harms relationships, regardless of the time period?
If an author changes an article about plastic pollution from a Problem/Solution structure to a Compare/Contrast structure, how does the tone change?
What is it shifts from an urgent call-to-action to a neutral analysis?
A political leader uses rising employment statistics to praise their administration. How would an opponent use those exact same statistics to make a counter-argument?
What is by claiming the jobs are low-paying or temporary?
To change a setting's mood from peaceful to anxious without using emotion words, an author must switch from soft imagery to this type of imagery.
What is harsh, erratic, or restrictive imagery (e.g., shadows tightening)?
An 1850 newspaper article uses economic data to praise railroads. An 1850 poem calls the train an "Iron Monster." What accounts for this difference in perspective?
What is the article values financial profit; the poem values environmental preservation?