12th grade ELA

Master Glossary

(These terms should be pre-assessed, introduced, taught and learned throughout the year, and post-assessed at the end of the year.)

Literary Terms

Allegory

A symbolic story. Any writing that has a double meaning; an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent themselves on a literal level, but also stand for something else on a symbolic level.

Antagonist

A character or force that fghts against the protagonist or the main character.

Antihero

A main character or protagonist who embodies negative characteristics more typical of a villain or antagonist. An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life. Often, archetypes include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that some critics think have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race. These images have particular emotional resonance and power. That particular point in a narrative at which the confict or tension hits the highest point. It is usually a turning point in the narrative. When the author or the characters directly comment on the appearance and characteristics of a character in a story.

Archetype

Climax

Direct Characterization

Dystopia

A society characterized by human misery (i.e. squalor, disease, oppression and overcrowding).

Epic

A long, serious, poetic narrative about a signifcant event, often featuring a hero.

External Confict

A struggle between a literary or dramatic character and an outside force such as nature or another character, which drives the dramatic action of the plot: man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. technology, man vs. society, man vs. supernatural / fate, etc.

Falling Action The events in the plot after the climax that lead to the fnal resolution of the confict

Flashback

Flashbacks are interruptions that writers do to insert past events in order to provide background or context to the current events of a narrative. By using fashbacks, writers allow their readers to gain insight into a character’s motivation and provide a background to a current confict. Dream sequences and memories are methods used to present fashbacks.

Foil

In literature, a foil is a character that shows qualities that are in contrast with the qualities of another character with the objective to highlight the traits of the other character.