MT - Literary Terms

Question 1

What is oral tradition?

Answer 1

Stories passed down from generation to generation through word of mouth (captures a group’s ideals).

Question 2

What are cultural details?

Answer 2

References to objects, animals, or practices that reflect aspects of daily life or prevalent attitudes.

Question 3

What is an exploration narrative?

Answer 3

Firsthand accounts of one’s travels.

Question 4

What does an author’s style consist of?

Answer 4

Choices of words, details, and focus.

Question 5

What are signal words?

Answer 5

Words that highlight the relationships among ideas.

Question 6

What is a slave narrative?

Answer 6

An autobiographical account of life as a slave.

Question 7

What do emotional appeals do?

Answer 7

They strengthen the impact of an idea or topic being presented through the writing.

Question 8

How do you summarize?

Answer 8

State main ideas and key details in your own words.

Question 9

What is a journal?

Answer 9

An individual’s day-by-day account of events.

Question 10

What is an author’s point of view?

Answer 10

An attitude toward the work’s topic or audience.

Question 11

What does recognizing the author’s purpose help you do?

Answer 11

It helps you understand the specific choice of words, details, and events.

Question 12

What is a narrative account?

Answer 12

A story about real-life experiences.

Question 13

What is the Puritan Plain Style?

Answer 13

A simple, direct style of writing characterized by the use of short, easily understood words common to the seventeenth-conversation.

Question 14

What does paraphrasing do?

Answer 14

Important ideas are restated in your own words.

Question 15

What is a sermon?

Answer 15

A speech that has a definite point of view and is delivered from the pulpit during a worship service.

Question 16

What is an oratory?

Answer 16

Public speaking that is formal, persuasive, and emotionally appealing.

Question 17

What is an autobiography?

Answer 17

A person’s account of his or her own life, usually written in the first person.

Question 18

What is an aphorism?

Answer 18

A short saying with a message.

Question 19

What is persuasion?

Answer 19

Writing meant to convince readers to think or act in a certain way.

Question 20

What is the audience?

Answer 20

The person or group of people the author intends to reach.

Question 21

What are charged words?

Answer 21

Words that contain strong connotations likely to produce an emotional response.

Question 22

What is personification?

Answer 22

The attribution of human powers or qualities to something that is not human.

Question 23

What are poems of praise?

Answer 23

Poems that are written in tribute to heroes, the natural world, or even ordinary objects.

Question 24

What are speeches?

Answer 24

Works of writing delivered orally.

Question 25

What is diction?

Answer 25

A writer’s choice and arrangement of words.

Question 26

What are private letters?

Answer 26

Letters that are intended only for the reader to whom they are addressed.

Question 27

What are epistles?

Answer 27

Writings written in the form of personal letters, but are created for general publication.

Question 28

What is a third-person omniscient point of view?

Answer 28

A narrator that stands outside the action and relates the thoughts and feelings of all the characters.

Question 29

What is direct characterization?

Answer 29

Characterization in which a writer simply states what a character is like.

Question 30

What is indirect characterization?

Answer 30

Characterization in which a writer reveals personality traits through the characters’ thoughts, words, and actions, and though what other characters say about them.

Question 31

What is an origin myth?

Answer 31

Stories that explain how life began through myths and traditional stories (passed down from generation to generation).