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Close reading
- Analysis of a text.
- You start with small details, and as you think about them, you discover how they affect the text's larger meaning.
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Colloquial/ism
An informal or conversational use of language.
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Style
The distinctive quality of speech or writing created by the selection and arrangement of words and figures of speech.
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Tone
- The speakers attitude toward the audience or subject.
- How the writing sounds.
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Diction
- Word Choice.
- Examples: archaic, positive, negative, threatening
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Syntax
- The arrangement of words.
- sentences can be short and chopy or long and flowing.
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Trope
Artful diction; the use of language in a nonliteral way; also called a figure of speech.
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Metaphor
- A figure of speech or trope through which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else, thus making an implicit comparison.
- The profesor planted new ideas in their fertial young minds.
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Simile
- A figure of speech that uses "like" or "as" to compare two things.
- Loud as thunder.
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Personification
Assigning lifelike characteristics to inanimate object.
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Hyperbole
Exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis.
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Scheme
A pattern of words or sentence construction used for rhetorical effect.
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Parallelism
The repetition of similar grammatical or syntactial patterns.
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Juxtaposition
Placement of two thing side by side for emphasis.
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Antithesis
- Parallel structure that juxtaposes contrasting ideas.
- (W)e shall support any friend, oppose any foe.
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Figure of Speech
An expression that strives for literary effect rather than conveying a literal meaning.
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Periodic Sentence
A sentence that builds toward the ends with the main clause.
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Cumulative Sentence
An independent clause followed by subordinate clauses or phrases that supply additional detail.
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Annotation
Explanatory or critical notes added to a text.
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Thesis Statement
A statement of the central idea in a work, may be explicit or implicit.
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Topic Sentence
A sentence, most often appearing at the beginning of a paragraph, that announces the paragraph's idea and often unites it with the work's thesis.
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Imagery
Vivid use of language that evokes a reader's senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing).
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Oxymoron
- A figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms.
- This peaceful revolution.
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Dialectal journal
- A double-coloumn journal in which one writes a quotation in one column and reflection on that quotation in the other column.
- Taking notes then making notes.
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Zeugma
A construction in which one word (usually a verb) modifies or governs - often in different, sometimes incongruent ways - two or more words in a sentence.
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Graphic Organizer
- A way to organize your thoughts about a specific text is to use a graphic organizer.
- Examples: time lines, flow charts, venn diagrams, spider maps.
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Archaic Diction
- The use of words common to an earlier time period; antiquated language.
- Beliefs for which our forebears fought.
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Complex Sentence
A sentence that includes one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
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Declarative Sentence
A sentence that makes a statement.
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Anaphora
- The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.
- Not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need - not as a call to battle, though embattled we are.
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Horatory
Urging, or strongly encouraging.
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Imperativ Sentence
A sentence that requests or commands.
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Antimetabole
- The repetition of words in an inverted order to sharpen a contrast.
- (A)sk not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
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Alliteration
- Repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence.
- (L)et us go forth to lead the land we love.
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Allusion
- Brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictious, or to a work of art.
- Let both sides unite to head in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah.
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Asyndeton
- Omission of conjunctions between coordinat phrases, clauses, or words.
- (W)e shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the sucess of liberty.
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Inversion
- Inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of the subject-verb-object order).
- United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do.
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Metonymy
- Using a single feature to represent the whole.
- In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.
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Rhetorical Question
- Figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer.
- Will you join in that historic effort?
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