The reason an author writes, such as to entertain, to inform, or to persuade.
What is author's purpose?
100
A series of events that make up a story.
What is plot?
100
A comparison between two unlike things, using the words like or as.
What is a simile?
100
An actual happening or truth.
What is a fact?
100
Categories of literary and information works.
What are genres?
200
The attitude the writer takes toward an audience, a subject, or a character. This is conveyed through the writer's choice of words and details. Examples are happy, sad, angry.
What is author's tone?
200
Introduction of the characters and their problems.
What is rising action?
200
A comparison between two unlike things in which one thing becomes another thing.
What is a metaphor?
200
A selection that is made up rather than factually true. Examples are novels and short stories.
What is fiction?
200
An important idea or conclusion drawn from reasoning rather than directly stated in the text.
What is an inference?
300
Techniques used to convey an author's message or voice. For example, idiom, figurative language, similes, metaphors, etc.
What are literary devices?
300
The most exciting moment in the story.
What is the climax?
300
A figure of speech in which a non-human thing or quality is talked about as if it were human.
What is personification?
300
An interruption in the present action of a story to go backward and tell what happened at an earlier time.
What is a flashback?
300
The overall emotion created by the author.
What is mood?
400
The major idea or topic that the author reveals in a literary work. It is usually not stated directly. Instead, the reader has to think about all the details of the work and then make an inference about what they mean.
What is theme?
400
The final part of the story when the characters' problems are solved and the story ends.
What is resolution?
400
A phrase or expression whose meaning cannot be understood using the ordinary means of the words in it. For example, "You drive me crazy!"
What is an idiom?
400
A story or legend forming part of an oral tradition.
What is a folktale?
400
A selection of writing that deal with real people, events, and places without changing any facts. Examples are autobiography, an essay, newspaper articles and a diary.
What is nonfiction?
500
The position or angle from which the narrator tells the story. Stories can be told in first person or omniscient.
What is point of view?
500
A person or an animal in a story, play, or literary work.
What is the character?
500
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. The words say one thing but mean another.
What is irony?
500
A literary technique in which the author gives hints about an event before it happens.
What is foreshadowing?
500
The ability of the reader to know or expect that something is going to happen in a text before it does.