7th+Grade+'L+to+J'+Terms

__No Permission to Forget! __ Below are a list of 99 literary terms that students should know well at the completion of their 7th grade year. All students have a copy of these terms in their binders and are tested on these terms weekly via our 'L to J' quizzes every Monday.

1. plot: the series of events in a story  2. conflict: a problem or struggle that a character faces  3. setting: the time and place of a story  4. foreshadowing: a hint or clue about something that will happen later  5. text features: things such as headings, bulleted lists, and graphics that help a reader find important information  6. inferences: conclusions that a reader draws based on clues in the story and his or her own knowledge  7. chronological order: the sequence in which events happen  8. acronym : words or codes formed from the first letters or syllables of other words  9. exposition: the beginning of a story in which the characters and the setting are introduced  10. rising action: part of the story when the main character struggles with a problem or conflict  11. climax: the most exciting moment in a story, when the main character must face his or her conflict  12. falling action: part of a story that follows the climax, when the tension eases and the conflict is nearly resolved  13. resolution: the end of the story, when the main conflict is resolved  14. suspense: a feeling of excitement and tension as readers wonder what will happen next in a story <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 15. compare: to think about how two things are alike <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 16. contrast: to think about how two things are different <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 17. first-person point of view: the narrator is a character in the story and uses the pronouns “I” and “me” <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 18. third-person point of view: the narrator is not a character in the story and uses the pronouns “he,” “she,” and “they” <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 19. alliteration:: repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 20. anecdotes: brief stories of real life events <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 21. symbol: a person, a place, or an object that stands for something other than itself <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 22. context clues: words or phrases in a sentence or paragraph that help define an unknown word <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 23. antecedent: he word phrase or clause to which a pronoun refers <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 24. trait: a feature or characteristic <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 25. predict: to make a logical guess based on what you already know <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 26. appositive: a noun or pronoun that identifies or renames the noun or pronoun it follows <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 27. personal essay: an essay that tells the writer’s personal opinions, beliefs, or ideas about a subject <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 28. autobiography: the story of a person’s life, written by that person <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 29. theme: a message or insight about life <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 30. bias: A writer’s attitude about a topic <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 31. biography: The story of a person’s life written by another person <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 32. compound subject: Consists of two or more subjects that share the same verb <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 33. synthesize: the process of combining different elements to form something new <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 34. connect: compare events in an essay or other writing piece with one’s own experience <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 35. connotation: the ideas and feelings associated with the word, as a opposed to its dictionary definition <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 36. coordinating conjunctions: joins two main clauses <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 37. denotation: a word’s dictionary definition <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 38. character trait: a quality that a person has, such as generosity <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 39. mood: a feeling created in a reader by the writer <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 40. tone: a writer’s attitude toward, or feelings about, a subject <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 41. fact: a statement that can be proven to be true <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 42. summarize: to describe in a few words the most important information in a larger piece <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 43. flashback: a break in a story to tell about something that happened at an earlier time <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 44. form: the structure or organization of a work of writing <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 45. word choice: the careful use of words to express a specific idea <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 46. simile: a comparison using “like” or “as” <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 47. dialogue: a conversation between two or more people or characters <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 48. imagery: descriptive language that appeals to readers’ senses <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 49. historical drama: plays that take place in the past and are based on real events <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 50. homographs: words that are spelled the same but have different meanings <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 51. idiom: an expression particular to a group of people or region that can not be understood from the words that make it up <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 52. interpretive essay: a short composition that presents the author’s ideas about a particular subject <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 53. sound devices: use of sounds, such as rhyme, rhythm, repetition, and alliteration to make music or express meaning <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 54. rhyme: repetition of sounds at the end of words <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 55. repetition: technique in which a sound, word, phrase, or line is repeated <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 56. irony: a contrast between what is expected and what actually exists or happens <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 57. metaphor: comparison between two unlike things not using “like” or “as” <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 58. personification: giving human qualities to an animal, object, or idea <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 59. figurative language: use of literary devices to describe familiar things in new ways <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 60. main character: a person in a story who has a strong effect on the plot <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 61. meter: in poetry, the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 62. speaker: the voice in a poem that “talks” to the reader <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 63. minor character: a person in a story who has little effect on the plot <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 64. myth: a story that was created to explain the mysteries of the universe <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 65. legend: a story handed down from the past that is based on real people and events <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 66. folk tale: a story that was originally passed down orally, that may feature both human and animal characters, and that teaches a lesson <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 67. tall tale: a story with exaggerated characters and events <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 68. monitor: to check understanding during reading <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 69. universal theme: a message that is meaningful to people living in any country at any time <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 70. cause: an event that makes another event happen <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 71. effect: an event that happens as a result of a previous event <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 72. outline: a way of organizing main ideas and details <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 73. clause: a group of words that includes a subject and a verb <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 74. compound sentence: a sentence made up of two clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction, such as “and,” “but,” or “or” <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 75. complex sentence: a sentence made up of two clauses joined by a subordinating conjunction, such as “because,” “when,” or “after” <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 76. moral: a lesson that a story teaches <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 77. omniscient point of view: telling of a story by a narrator who is not a character in a story and reveals the thoughts and feelings of all the characters <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 78. persuasive techniques: methods used to convince a person to act or think in a certain way <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 79. opinion: an expression of feelings or belief that cannot be proved <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 80. overgeneralization: a statement about a group that is much to broad to be true <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 81. personal narrative: an account of one incident from a writer’s life <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 82. counterargument: ideas that are presented to oppose another argument <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 83. graphic aids: visual aids such as charts, tables, graphs, bold print, italics, and font size that help readers to find or understand information more readily <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 84. perspective: one person’s point of view <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 85. prefix: a word beginning that changes the meaning of a word root <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 86. primary sources: the official record and first person’s account of events & people’s experience, such as letters, diaries, journals, newspapers and magazine articles and speeches <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 87. quotation: direct statements from others that are set off with quotation marks <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 88. rhythm: pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 89. run on sentences: made up of two or more sentences written as though they were one <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 90. sequence: the order in which things happen <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 91. stage directions: instructions in a play to the actors, directors, and readers <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 92. style: a writer’s unique way of communicating ideas <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 93. subject verb agreement: using a verb that agrees in number with the subject <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 94. suffix: a word ending that effects the meaning of a word root <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 95. synonyms: a word with a meaning similar to that of another word <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 96. evaluating: asking and answering questions about the reliability of a source <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 97. verb tense: a form of a word describing an action or state that indicates when the action or state occurs <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 98. word root: the main part of a word without any prefix or suffix <span style="color: #000dff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 99. main idea: the central point a writer is trying to make