Literary Terms Definition Quiz

Conflict: A struggle between opposing forces in a story, often between characters, within a character, or between characters and external forces.
Foreshadowing: Hints or clues that suggest what will happen later in the story.
Resolution: The part of the story where the conflict is resolved.
Exposition: The introductory section of a story that provides background information needed to understand the events that follow.
Climax: The turning point of a story, often the most intense and important moment.
Theme: The central message or insight about life or human nature revealed through a literary work.
Symbol: A person, place, object, event, or image that represents something beyond itself.
Rising Action: The series of events that build toward the climax of a story.
Falling Action: The events following the climax that lead to the resolution.
Flashback: A scene that interrupts the present action to show events that happened earlier.
First-Person: A narrative perspective where the story is told from the viewpoint of one of the characters using "I."
Third-Person Omniscient: A narrative perspective where the narrator knows and reveals the thoughts and feelings of all characters.
Third-Person Limited: A narrative perspective where the narrator tells the story from the viewpoint of one character, only revealing their thoughts and feelings.
Character Trait: A specific quality about a character, such as honesty, courage, or greed.
Motivation: The reason a character acts or behaves in a particular way.
Static Character: A character who does not change significantly throughout the story.
Dynamic Character: A character who changes significantly throughout the story.
Direct Characterization: The narrator tells the audience directly about a character's traits, qualities, or personality.
Indirect Characterization: The narrator shows the audience a character's traits or qualities through actions, dialogue, descriptions, and interactions.
Flat Character: A character who is one-dimensional and does not undergo significant change or development.
Round Character: A character who is complex and multi-dimensional, and undergoes significant change or development.
Allegory: A story in which characters, events, and setting represent abstract ideas or moral qualities.
Fable: A short story, typically with animals as characters, that teaches a moral lesson.
Satire: A literary work that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices.
Irony: A literary device where the intended meaning is different from the actual meaning, often creating humor or a critical effect.
Propaganda: Information or misinformation used to promote a particular idea or point of view.
Slogans: Short, memorable phrases used to promote a product or idea.
Appeal to Fear: A persuasive technique employing negative imagery to frighten the audience into supporting a particular cause.
Appeal to Basic Needs: A persuasive technique focusing on the audience's fundamental needs, such as safety, security, or belonging.
Loaded Words: Words with strong emotional connotations that influence the audience's feelings.
Bandwagon: A persuasive technique encouraging people to follow the majority, exploiting their desire to belong.
Ethos: An appeal to ethics, emphasizing credibility and trustworthiness to persuade the audience.
Logos: An appeal to logic, reasoning, and evidence to persuade the audience.
Pathos: An appeal to emotions to persuade the audience.
Thesis Statement: A statement or sentence that summarizes the main point or argument of an essay.
Repetition: The act of repeating words or phrases to emphasize a point or create a certain effect.
Analogy: A comparison between two different things to explain or clarify an idea or concept.
Diction: The choice of words in a piece of writing.
Topic Sentence: A sentence that expresses the main idea of a paragraph.
SOAPSTone: A method for analyzing a piece of writing by considering speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, tone.
C-E-R: A method for constructing well-supported arguments using Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning.
Says, Means, Matters: A method for analyzing a quote by examining what the quote says, what the quote means in context, and why the quote is important to the overall text.
Quote Lead-in: A phrase that introduces a quote to contextualize it for the reader.
Qualitative Evidence: Descriptive or observational data that is not numerical.
Quantitative Evidence: Data that can be expressed numerically.