Plot Twist
This part of the plot introduces the characters, setting, and the basic situation before the action kicks off. What is it?
What is the exposition?
If the Greek root "bio" means life, and "graphy" means writing, what is a biography?
What is a written account of someone's life?
This punctuation mark is used to separate items in a list, fix a comma splice when paired with a conjunction, or separate an introductory phrase.
What is a comma?
"My alarm clock screams at me every single morning." Name this type of figurative language.
What is personification?
This punctuation mark is shaped like a hook with a dot under it and expresses total confusion.
What is a question mark?
A character is trapped in a massive Virginia thunderstorm while trying to hike the Blue Ridge Mountains. Name this specific type of external conflict.
What is Individual vs. Nature? (Accept: Man vs. Nature)
Based on your knowledge of prefixes, if you take a "stop" flight, what kind of flight is a nonstop flight?
What is a flight that does not stop?
Identify the adverb in this sentence: "The sixth grader eagerly opened the textbook."
What is eagerly?
While a simile uses "like" or "as" to make a comparison, this device states that something is something else entirely.
What is a metaphor?
If you drop your dynamic character into a vat of radioactive nacho cheese, they might become this type of cheese-themed superhero.
What is Nacho Man? (Accept any hilarious cheese pun your students come up with!)
This is the turning point of a story where the tension reaches its absolute highest peak.
What is the climax?
The Latin root "aud" means to hear. Name a device, space, or group of people that uses this root.
What is an auditorium, audio, audience, or audition?
"Because the lunch bell rang" cannot stand alone as a complete thought. What type of clause is it?
What is a dependent clause? (Accept: subordinate clause)
If an author writes a spooky story using words like shadowy, eerie, chilling, and echo, they are intentionally establishing what literary element?
What is tone (or mood)?
According to middle school lore, this mythical creature is the most common thief of pencils, chargers, and worksheets.
What is the locker? (Or accept: a friend / the backpack monster).
Unlike a static character who stays exactly the same, this type of character undergoes an important internal change or growth by the end of the story.
What is a dynamic character?
Look at this sentence: "The teacher was completely flummoxed by the student's bizarre excuse that an alien ate their homework." Using context clues, what does flummoxed mean?
What is confused, baffled, or perplexed?
Fix the pronoun-antecedent agreement error in this sentence: "Every student must bring their own pencil."
What is "Every student must bring his or her own pencil"? (Or changing "Every student" to "All students").
Idioms are phrases that don't mean exactly what they say. What does the idiom "break a leg" mean?
What is good luck?
Translate this text slang into a complete English sentence: "idk ttyl"
What is "I do not know, talk to you later"?
This sneaky narrative element is the "initiating event." What is its job in a plot?
What is the event that sparks the central conflict (or starts the action moving)?
The prefix "hyper-" means over or excessive. What is the vocabulary word for an extreme, intentional exaggeration used for emphasis?
What is a hyperbole?
Name the sentence type used here: "While the teacher was talking, a bird flew into the window, and everyone screamed."
What is a compound-complex sentence?
What is the term for a direct comparison between two things that uses "like" or "as"?
What is a simile?
If an English teacher goes to the beach in Virginia Beach, they don't look at the ocean waves—they look for this 10-letter vocabulary word that means "how the ocean is organized."
What is paragraphs? (Just kidding—the silly answer is Text Structure!)