Grade 8: Literary Terms, Units 4–5

An allusion is an unexplained reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art.

An autobiography is a true account of events and experiences written by the person who directly experienced them.

A memoir is a type of autobiography that focuses on a specific period in the author's life or an experience that holds particular significance for the author.

In a memoir, an author will often use reflective writing to communicate his or her thoughts and feelings—or reflections—about an event, experience, or idea.

A form may have a certain number of stanzas, lines, or both. It may require a pattern of rhyme, called a rhyme scheme.

Free verse is poetry not written in a regular, rhythmical pattern, or meter.

Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of syllables, especially stressed syllables. EXAMPLE: O wild West Wind.

Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds at the ends of syllables with different vowel sounds. EXAMPLE: a quiet light, and then not even that.

Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds. EXAMPLE: pebbles resting in wet sand.

A character is a personality that is part of a story.

In all narratives, the plot, or sequence of related events, is moved by a conflict that characters face.

Expository writing is a work that presents information, discusses ideas, or explains a process.

An argument is a logical way of presenting a viewpoint, belief, or stand on an issue.

In The Invention of Everything Else, the author uses figurative language—language not meant to be taken literally—to describe and compare things in imaginative ways.

Personification is a type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics.

A simile is a figure of speech that uses like or as to make a direct comparison between two unlike ideas.

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which something is described as though it were something else.