ENGLISH STAAR VOCABULARY

Front

Tone

Back

The author’s attitude towards the topic, such as critical, objective, optimistic, angry, or nostalgic.

Front

Inference or infer

Back

An educated guess made by connecting what you read with what you already know.

Front

Paraphrase

Back

To express the author’s ideas in a different way.

Front

Summarize

Back

To describe the most important parts from a larger piece of text.

Front

Character Foil

Back

A character who serves as a contrast to the main character to highlight their qualities or traits.

Front

Oxymoron

Back

A figure of speech in which seemingly opposite words are used together to create new meaning (e.g., jumbo shrimp).

Front

Sarcasm

Back

The use of irony in order to mock or insult.

Front

Flashback

Back

The author pauses the story to describe something that happened earlier to help readers understand the current or future events.

Front

Characterization

Back

How the author develops a character.

Front

Theme

Back

The big idea or lesson you learn from a story; the message the author wants to share.