MTEL Middle School Humanities (76)

Plot refers to the sequence of events forming the narrative structure.

Exposition introduces characters, setting, and initial situation. It provides background information necessary for understanding the story.

Rising action encompasses events that develop conflict and build tension. Complications arise, stakes increase, and characters face obstacles.

Climax is the turning point of maximum tension where the central conflict reaches crisis. The protagonist faces a decisive moment.

Falling action shows consequences of the climax. Tensions decrease as events move toward resolution.

Resolution (denouement) concludes the narrative by resolving conflicts and revealing outcomes for characters.

Conflict types include person versus person (protagonist against antagonist), person versus self (internal psychological struggle), person versus society (individual against social forces), person versus nature (survival against environmental forces), person versus fate/supernatural (struggle against destiny or otherworldly powers), and person versus technology (human against machines or scientific creations).

Narrative techniques affecting plot include flashback (returning to earlier events), foreshadowing (hints about future events), in medias res (beginning in the middle of action), frame narrative (story within a story), parallel plots (simultaneous storylines), and nonlinear chronology.

Characters are the persons, animals, or entities whose actions drive narratives.

Protagonist is the central character whose journey the narrative follows. Antagonists oppose protagonists, creating conflict.

Character types include round characters (complex, multidimensional personalities), flat characters (defined by single traits), static characters (unchanged throughout the narrative), and dynamic characters (transformed by experiences).

Characterization methods divide into direct characterization (explicit statements about characters) and indirect characterization (revelation through actions, speech, thoughts, appearance, and others' reactions). The acronym STEAL helps remember indirect methods: Speech, Thoughts, Effect on others, Actions, Looks.

Archetypes are recurring character patterns across cultures: the hero, mentor, threshold guardian, herald, shapeshifter, shadow, trickster, and ally. Joseph Campbell's monomyth identifies the hero's journey pattern common to world mythologies.

Motivation refers to reasons behind characters' actions. Believable characters have coherent psychological motivations. Internal conflicts arise when motivations clash.

Setting encompasses the time, place, and social environment in which narratives occur.

Temporal setting includes historical period, season, time of day, and duration of events. Historical fiction requires accurate period details.

Physical setting involves geographical location, weather, landscape, architecture, and objects. Settings may be realistic, fantastical, or symbolic.

Social setting comprises cultural norms, social hierarchies, political conditions, and economic circumstances affecting characters.

Functions of setting include establishing atmosphere/mood, reflecting character psychology, symbolizing themes, creating conflict, and grounding narratives in recognizable or imaginable worlds.

Setting in different genres serves varying purposes. Gothic literature uses dark, isolated settings to create fear. Regionalist literature captures particular geographical areas authentically. Dystopian fiction depicts oppressive future societies.

Point of view determines who tells the story and what information is accessible.

First-person narration uses "I" with the narrator as a character within the story. It provides intimacy and subjective perspective but limits knowledge to what the narrator experiences or learns. Unreliable first-person narrators may deceive or misunderstand, requiring readers to read critically.

Second-person narration uses "you," addressing readers as characters. It is rare in fiction but common in instructional texts and some experimental literature.

Third-person limited uses "he/she/they" while restricting knowledge to one character's perspective. Readers access only what the focal character perceives and thinks.

Third-person omniscient features a narrator with unlimited knowledge of all characters' thoughts, feelings, and actions. The narrator can move freely across time and space.

Third-person objective (dramatic) reports only observable actions and dialogue without access to any character's internal states.

Narrative distance varies from intimate identification with characters to detached observation. Authors manipulate distance for effect.

Theme refers to the central ideas or messages conveyed through literary works.

Multiple themes often coexist within complex works, sometimes in tension with each other.

Theme development occurs through recurring motifs, character arcs, symbolic patterns, and narrative resolution.

Figurative language uses words beyond literal meanings to create effects.

Simile compares unlike things using "like" or "as": "Her smile was like sunshine."

Metaphor directly identifies one thing as another: "Time is money."

Extended metaphor develops a comparison throughout a passage or entire work.

Irony involves discrepancy between appearance and reality. Verbal irony says the opposite of what is meant. Situational irony occurs when outcomes contradict expectations. Dramatic irony exists when audiences know more than characters.

Symbolism uses concrete objects to represent abstract ideas. Conventional symbols have shared cultural meanings (dove for peace). Literary symbols gain meaning within specific texts.

Allegory is an extended narrative where characters and events systematically represent abstract concepts. Orwell's Animal Farm allegorizes Soviet history.

Allusion references other texts, myths, historical events, or cultural knowledge: "He met his Waterloo."

Imagery creates sensory impressions through language. Visual imagery appeals to sight; auditory to hearing; olfactory to smell; gustatory to taste; tactile to touch; kinesthetic to movement.

Onomatopoeia uses words imitating sounds: buzz, crash, whisper.

Oxymoron combines contradictory terms: "deafening silence."

Paradox presents apparently contradictory statements revealing truth: "The more you give, the more you receive."

Sound devices create musical effects in poetry and prose.

Rhyme involves matching sounds. End rhyme occurs at line endings. Internal rhyme occurs within lines. Slant rhyme (near rhyme) uses similar but not identical sounds.

Rhythm is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Meter is regular, measured rhythm. Common metrical feet include iamb (unstressed-stressed), trochee (stressed-unstressed), anapest (unstressed-unstressed-stressed), dactyl (stressed-unstressed-unstressed), and spondee (stressed-stressed).

Alliteration repeats initial consonant sounds: "Peter Piper picked."

Assonance repeats vowel sounds: "The rain in Spain."

Consonance repeats consonant sounds within or at the end of words: "pitter-patter."

Repetition emphasizes through recurrence of words, phrases, or structures.