Literary Elements – English II

• Biography – a form of nonfiction in which a writer tells the life story of another person.  Biographies have    been written about many famous people, historical and contemporary, but they can also be written about “ordinary” people.
• Character – a person or an animal who takes part in the action of a literary work. 
• protagonist – main character
• antagonist – character or force in conflict with a main character or protagonist
• round character – shows many different traits – faults as well as virtues.
• flat character – shows only one trait
• dynamic character – develops and grows during course of story
• static character – does not change
• Conflict – struggle between opposing forces. 
• external conflict – main character struggles against an outside force (man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. society)
• internal conflict – a character in conflict with himself or herself (man vs. self)
• Dialect – a special form of a language, spoken by people in a particular region or group.  It may involve changes to the pronunciation, vocabulary, and sentence structure of the standard form of the language.
• Dialogue – a conversation between characters that may reveal their traits and advance the action of a story.  Quotation marks indicate a speaker’s exact words, and a new paragraph usually indicates a change in speakers.
• Expository texts – a short nonfiction work about a particular subject.  They give information, discuss ideas or explain a process.
• Fiction – prose writing that tells about imaginary characters and events.  Term is usually used for novels and short stories, but may also apply to drama and narrative poetry.
• Historical novels – fictional stories with real historical settings
• Idiomatic expression – an expression that is characteristic of a language, region, community, or class of people.  These expressions mean something more than or different from the meaning of the words making them up.
• Informational text – include the following types of writing
• expository texts – those which present facts to increase the knowledge and understanding of an audience
• persuasive texts – those written to influence the opinions or actions of an audience (editorials, speeches, debates, reviews
• procedural texts – these explain a process (instructions, recipes, and manuals).]
• Literary nonfiction – combine personal examples and ideas with factual information
• personal essays – convey the writer’s thoughts and feelings about an experience or idea
• biographies – tell the story of someone’s life and are told by another writer’s perspective
• Novellas – intermediate works of fiction that are longer than short stories but are more concise and focused than novels.
• Perspective – the author’s point of view on the subject, including the opinions that the author expresses and the source of the author’s information – whether general research, for example, or personal experience.

• Plot – the sequence of events in a literary work.
• exposition – beginning of story that introduces the setting, characters, and basic situation
• inciting incident – part of the story that introduces the central conflict
• rising action – events that lead up to the climax
• climax – the high point of a story, novel, or play
• falling action - events that follow the climax
• denouement or resolution – conflict is resolved and a general insight may be conveyed
• point of view – the writer’s choice of narrator (character who tells the story
• first person – character in the story tells the story
• third person – character outside the story tells the story
• an omniscient or all-knowing narrator can tell what character thinks and feels
• a limited narrator can only reveal one character’s thoughts
• Purpose – the author’s reason for writing.  It may be to persuade, to inform, to entertain, or to describe
• Setting – the time and place of the action of a story.  This may include the historical period – past, present or future, or a specific year, season or time of day.  It may include the geographical place – a region, country state, or town, as well as the social, economic, or cultural environment.
• Short story – a brief work of friction.  In most short stories, one main character faces a conflict that is resolved in the plot of the story.
• Theme – a central message or insight into life reveled through a literary.  The theme may be stated or implied.
• Tone – the writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject.  The tone can often be described by a single adjective such as formal or informal, serious or playful, bitter or ironic.
• Universal theme – a message about life that can be understood by most cultures (the importance of courage, the effects of honesty, the danger of greed)