English exam review

Kathleen Stokes

Main Idea/Supporting Details

Individual paragraphs contain a main idea and supporting details. Some paragraphs contain just supporting details for a main idea provided in an earlier paragraph. Regardless of how writers structure their essays, the major and minor supporting details provide a variety of information essential to understanding and developing the argument. Supporting details answer the six basic research questions of who, what, where, when, why and how.

Authors Point of View

The

authors point of view is his feeling, opinion, or belief about his topic. The author's point of view should not be confused with the narrator's point of view. The author is the man or woman who composed the words. The writer may have written from a personal perspective or from an alternative narrator's point of view.

Inferences/Analysis
Analysis

- Understanding the techniques that make a literary work effective, identifying them in the books you read and writing a brief essay explaining what youve identified. Inferences - A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.

Meaning of Figurative Language

Figurative

language is a word or phrase that departs from everyday literal language for the sake of comparison, emphasis, clarity, or freshness.

Connotation/Denotation
An

idea or feeling that a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning. The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.

Plot and Pacing

the

story or sequence of events in something such as a novel, play, or movie the rate or speed at which things happen or develop

Objective Summaries
Objective

summaries are summaries written without opinions of the writer

Characterization
the

way in which the writer portrays the characters in a book, play, or movie

Literary Devices (imagery, symbolism, flashback, foreshadow)

is

any standardized method an author uses to convey his message

Theme
the

subject of a discourse, discussion, piece of writing, or artistic composition

Summarize, Paraphrase, Generalizations (GISTs)

Need

to know what these are and how to make one (a GIST)