What You Need to Know

Fiction

Plot The series of events in a story Event #1 Event #2 Event #3 And so on…

Exposition (Introduction) The beginning of the story where the setting, background, and characters are introduced. Exposition

Rising Action The events that move the story forward and create some kind of conflict. Rising Action

Conflict Struggles or problems between opposing forces in the story

Climax The turning point in the story where the conflict is at its peak. Climax

Falling Action The events that start to wrap up the story. Falling Action

Resolution The conflict is completely wrapped up and the story ends. Resolution

PLOT DIAGRAM R i s i n g A c t i o n F a l l i n g A c t i o n Resolution Climax Exposition Conflict

Summarization Retelling the main points, events, or ideas, while leaving out the less important details

Characterization Characterization is the way an author develops the personality of a character.

Indirect characterization shows things that reveal the personality of a character.  showing the character's appearance  displaying the character's actions  revealing the character's thoughts  letting the character speak  getting the reactions of others

Example: If a mother calmly tells her son it's time for bed and he responds by saying, 'No, I don't have to do what you say! I'm staying up all night!' What can we infer? Example: A character smiles shakily and says, “That’s all right,” while turning away to hide a tear. What can we infer? Readers sometimes must infer to gather indirect details about a character

Non- Fiction Memoir

Autobiography (Auto=self, bio=life, graph=written) Memoir True=Non-Fiction First-Person point-of-view Focuses on a specific event or time period in the author’s life, and includes the author’s feelings about those events Memories that are important to the author’s life, or unusual

Reading a memoir is a lot like reading someone’s diary—filled not just with what happened, but also describing how the person felt about what happened.

Types of Figurative Language

Extended Metaphor An extended metaphor is a comparison that is continued in a piece of literature for more than a single reference. It might be contained in a few sentences, a paragraph, stanza, or an entire literary piece. An author uses an extended metaphor to build a larger comparison between two things. “Bobby Holloway says my imagination is a three-hundred-ring circus. Currently I was in ring two hundred and ninety-nine, with elephants dancing and clowns cart wheeling and tigers leaping through rings of fire. The time had come to step back, leave the main tent, go buy some popcorn and a Coke, bliss out, cool down.” (Dean Koontz, Seize the Night. Bantam, 1999) Example

Grammar

Imperative Mood  A Command or an Order—the subject (you) is NOT included  A request (the same but with a polite “please”) Please, come in. Turn that computer off, please. Come in. Turn that computer off now!

Active Voice The one doing the action is also the subject of the sentence

Fixing Participles The participle/modifier is right next to the thing (noun) that it is describing

 Words with multiple meanings  Latin roots and prefixes Vocabulary Context Clues!