Writing Material Part 3

Question 0

Plot Devices

Answer 0

Elements of plot that operate to cause or resolve conflicts and to provide information.

Ex: Foreshadowing.

Question 1

Plot

Answer 1

Arrangement of events in a story. What happens in the story.

Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, Joe and his family meet up, go to California, search for jobs, and live in various camps. In the end, the only benefit the gain is unity.

Question 2

Poem

Answer 2

At the heart of Dr. Rosenblatt’s theory…” is the idea of the poem as an event in the life of the reader, as a doing, a making, a combustion fed by the coming together of a particular personality and a particular text at a particular time.” Louise Rosenblatt’s term for the interpretive moment when reader and text connect. In normal definitions, a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure or something that arouses strong emotions because of its beauty.

Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, this occurs when Steinbeck first describes the surrounding setting with figurative language.

Question 3

Polyptoton

Answer 3

A rhetorical term for the repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings.

Ex 1: “I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living.”

Ex 2: “Choosy Mothers Choose Jif.”

Ex 3: “The things you own end up owning you.”

Question 4

Polysyndeton

Answer 4

Repetition of conjunctions in close succession.

Ex: “We have ships and men and money and stores.”
And is the conjunction being repeatedly said.

Question 5

Premise, Major

Answer 5

The first premise in a syllogism. The major premise states an irrefutable generalization.

Ex: All men are mortal.

Question 6

Prosopopoeia

Answer 6

The giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects.

Ex: The window winked at me.

Question 7

Pun

Answer 7

A play on words. Types of puns include anataclasis, words that sound alike but have different meanings; paranomasia, words alike in sound but different in meaning; and syllepsis, a word used differently in relation to two other words it governs or modifies.

Ex: “I moss say I’m taking a lichen to that fungi.”
Haha, that’s so punny. Get it? wink wink

Question 8

Purpose

Answer 8

The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text. Also called aim and intention. In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order in invent material, the words the speaker or writer uses to describe the reason something happened or happens in a particular situation. Purpose, which is associated with meaning and answers the question “why?”, indicates that the agent seeks unity through identification with an ultimate meaning of life. Reflects the world view of mysticism

Ex: In Pride, Dagoberto Gilb’s aim is to define pride and what it means to him.

Question 9

Reader’s Repertoire

Answer 9

The collection of predictions and revisions a person employs when reading a text. Your literary repertoire simply means the works and concepts of literature with which you are familiar. What has your experience with various works taught you? Our repertoire includes the strategies and techniques of literature as well.

Ex: If, for example, you have been fooled by a surprise ending a few times, you have learned that the outcome suggested by a story’s line of development may not, in fact, be the way it turns out. You have learned from experience to be wary of the possibility of a surprise ending.

Question 10

Recursive

Answer 10

Referring to the moving back and forth from invention to revision in the process of writing.

Ex: In writing my research paper, I invent material and revise previously invented material.

Question 11

Refutation

Answer 11

In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker would anticipate objections to the points being raised and counter them.

Ex: Julius Caesar used this method in his speeches to better argue his point.

Question 12

Reliable Narrator

Answer 12

A believable, trustworthy commentator on events and characters in a story.

Ex: In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is a reliable narrator, though somewhat secretive.

Question 13

Repitition

Answer 13

In a text, repeated use of sounds, words, phrases, or clauses to emphasize meaning or achieve effect.

Ex 1: The dog ran, the dog jumped, and the dog whimpered.

Ex 2:”‘Hot!’ said the conductor to familiar faces. ‘Some Weather! … Hot! … Hot! … Hot! … Is it hot enough … ‘” (Fitzgerald 121).

Question 14

Rhetor

Answer 14

The speaker who uses elements of rhetoric (diction, scheme, trope, argument, and syntax) effectively in oral or written text.

Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald is the rhetor in The Great Gatsby.

Question 15

Rhetoric

Answer 15

The art of analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, reader, or listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective; the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners in a situation.

Ex: Diction, scheme, trope, argument, and syntax.

Question 16

Rhetorical Intention

Answer 16

Involvement and investment in and ownership of a piece of writing.

Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby has rhetorical intention.

Question 17

Rhetorical Question

Answer 17

A question posed by the speaker or writer not to seek an answer but instead to affirm or deny a point simply by asking a question about it.

Ex: “Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” (Shakespeare).

Question 18

Rhetorical Situation

Answer 18

The convergence in a situation of exigency (the need to write), audience, and purpose. The context of a rhetorical act, made up (at a minimum) of a rhetor, an issue (or exigence), and an audience. Put another way, a rhetorical situation occurs when a rhetor, an audience, a medium (such as a text or speech), and a context converge to create a rhetorical act, such as writing or speaking.

Ex: Before drafting my research paper, I had to analyze my purpose and how much background information to provide for my audience.

Question 19

Rhetorical Triangle

Answer 19

A diagram showing the relations of writer or speaker, reader or listener, and text in a rhetorical situation.

Question 20

Romance Language

Answer 20

A language that is derived from Latin.

Ex: French, Italian.

Question 21

Round Character

Answer 21

A figure with complexity in action and personality,

Ex: Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Question 22

Sarcasm

Answer 22

The use of mockery or bitter irony.

Ex: “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh!”

Question 23

Scenic Narration

Answer 23

Narration in which an event or a moment of a plot is stretched out for dramatic effect.

Ex: In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the scene in which Myrtle is accidentally killed.

Question 24

Six-Part Oration

Answer 24

In classical rhetoric, a speech consisting of exordium, narration, partition, confirmation, refutation, and peroration.

Ex: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address follows this structure.

Question 25

Slang

Answer 25

Informal language, often considered inappropriate for formal occasions and text.

Ex: “This is sick.”

Question 26

Soliloquy

Answer 26

Dialogue in which a character speaks aloud to himself or herself.

Ex: “To be or not to be, that is the question: / Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them” (Shakespeare).

Question 27

Speaker

Answer 27

The person delivering a speech, or the character assumed to be speaking a poem.

Ex: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Question 28

Stance

Answer 28

A writer’s or speaker’s apparent attitude toward the audience.

Ex: Franklin D. Roosevelt embraced the audience in his First Inaugural Address.

Question 29

Static Character

Answer 29

A figure who remains the same from the beginning to the end of a narrative.

Ex: Nick Carraway is essentially a static character in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Question 30

Style

Answer 30

The choices that writers or speakers make in language for effect.

Ex: Part of John Steinbeck’s style is to focus on the setting in novels like The Grapes of Wrath.

Question 31

Subject

Answer 31

One of the points on the Aristotelian or rhetorical triangle; the subject matter a writer or speaker is writing or speaking about.

Ex: John Steinbeck was writing about the Dust Bowl in The Grapes of Wrath.

Question 32

Subordinate Clause

Answer 32

A group of words that includes a subject and verb but that cannot stand on its own as a sentence; also called dependent clause. A group of words that contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought.

Ex: After the dog slept, the dog ran.
After the dog slept is the clause

Question 33

Summary Narration

Answer 33

Narration in which a brief statement of events moves the plot quickly.

Ex 1: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon includes many summary narrations when they jump years in time.

Ex 2: Memoirs of a Geisha where Sayuri sums up all that happens after she is united with the chairman at the end of the book.

Question 34

Support

Answer 34

In a test, the material offered to make concrete or to back up a generalization, conclusion, or claim.

Ex: “Recent studies in the brain chemistry of rats show that when they play, their brains release large amounts of dopamine . . .” (Rifkin).