High School English Grades 9-12

Dramatic Irony

• Writing in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama that tells a story
• A contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true
• A central message or insight into life revealed through a literary work
• A struggle involving a conflict within a character

Idiom

• An event occurs that directly contradicts the expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience
• The general term for literary techniques that portray differences between appearance and reality, or expectation and result.
• The speaker or character who tells a story and directs the type and amount of information the writer reveals
• An expression that is not meant to be taken literally but has a meaning for the speakers of a particular language

Metaphor

• A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else
• The use of anything that has its own meaning and reality but also represents abstract ideas
• An expression that is not meant to be taken literally but has a meaning for the speakers of a particular language
• A contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true

Point Of View

• A figure of speech in which the words like or as is used to compare two apparently dissimilar items
• The repetition of initial consonant sounds 
• The speaker or character who tells a story and directs the type and amount of information the writer reveals
• The descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the reader

Theme

• The feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage
• A central message or insight into life revealed through a literary work
• The writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject
• A category or type of literature

Hyperbole

• A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else
• A deliberate exaggeration or overstatement
• A type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics
• Words are used to suggest the opposite of what is meant

Internal Conflict 

• A struggle involving a conflict within a character
• The use of anything that has its own meaning and reality but also represents abstract ideas
• An expression that is not meant to be taken literally but has a meaning for the speakers of a particular language
• The speaker or character who tells a story and directs the type and amount of information the writer reveals

Situational Irony

• A type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics
• A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else
• The descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the reader
• An event occurs that directly contradicts the expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience

External Conflict

• The repetition of initial consonant sounds
• A deliberate exaggeration or overstatement
• A figure of speech in which the words like or as is used to compare two apparently dissimilar items
• A struggle between a character and an outside force

Alliteration

• Words are used to suggest the opposite of what is meant
• A central message or insight into life revealed through a literary work
• The repetition of initial consonant sounds
• The feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage   Writing in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama that tells a story