Texts

Question 0

What makes a book science fiction over fantasy?

Answer 0

Though they are often used interchangeably they are not one and the same. Science fiction is about current or futuristic science and technology, other life forms such as aliens, other planets or universes, and time travel. While, fantasy is more fantastical dealing with witches, wizards, kings, queens, dragons,fairies, mermaids, talking animals and the like. Science fiction is “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle and fantasy is “The Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum.

Question 1

What is realistic fiction?

Answer 1

It is a broad designation referring to any story that could happen in real life. The events in the story are based in the real world while the characters are fictional. An example is “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Question 2

What is a fable?

Answer 2

They are short stories that teach a moral or lesson. The characters are usually animals, or sometimes plants or forces of nature given human qualities. Like in the “The Tortoise and the Hare”.

Question 3

Define anthropomorphized

Answer 3

When animal or inanimate characters are given human qualities.

Question 4

What is the difference between a myth or legend?

Answer 4

Legends can be based on historical figures or events, where myths typically involve supernatural beings or events. they both can take place either in other worlds or in other parts of the world, in the distant past, or both. A myth is “Odysseus in the Serpent Maze”. A legend would be “John Henery: An American Legend”.

Question 5

What are folktales?

Answer 5

They originated in the early stages of civilization and were passed along orally. They were stories that spring from folks’ imagination. It is really a broad designation because they can be humorous, some have morals, or be religious, romantic,or magical. An example is “Anasni the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti”.

Question 6

How did the oral tradition of folktales effect there development?

Answer 6

It left room for a great deal of shifting and modification between tellers.

Question 7

What are mysteries?

Answer 7

They are stories that entail solving a puzzle, usually some kind of crime or whodunit and a detective or sleuth, professional or amateur, who tries to solve it. They often have a cast of colorful characters who may or may not be suspects in the crime. An example, “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”.

Question 8

Why are historical fiction important for young children?

Answer 8

Historical events can be too distant or removed for children to really understand, and reading stories about people and children living through those events makes history more accessible to them. An example is Robert Coles, “The Story of Ruby Bridges”.

Question 9

What are the four major story elements students are taught to write and analyze stories with?

Answer 9

They are plot, character, setting, and theme.

Question 10

What is plot?

Answer 10

The events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story or simply by coincidence.

Question 11

How should a reader look at a character?

Answer 11

Both as a person in the story and as the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

Question 12

Why is setting important?

Answer 12

It gives the reader the place and time at which the work is represented as happening. This allows the reader to be aware of cultural or social environment of the work and helps give a better understanding to events or problems of the work.

Question 13

What is Freytag’s Pyramid?

Answer 13

A widely adopted system of analysis that allows students to perform a more sophisticated dissection of stories past that all stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Question 14

How does Freytag’s Pyramid divide plot?

Answer 14

Into five parts: Exposition: setting the stage Rising action: building the plot Climax: the turning point Falling action: the aftermath Resolution: the conclusion

Question 15

What is theme?

Answer 15

It is the main idea of a work, sometimes called the author’s purpose or moral. They are generally broad, but their treatment can run from simple to complex.

Question 16

How is theme affected by religion or culture?

Answer 16

Religion and culture are often inherent in themes, and the theme would change significantly if one of those elements changed: if the protagonists were Caucasian or African American, Jewish or Buddhist.

Question 17

How would that same theme change between a kindergarten-level story to a sixth-grade novel?

Answer 17

The theme be yourself in kindergarten might come in the form of a young girl who likes to wear clothes that are different from the clothes of all other girls. While in sixth grade it could be presented as the story of a boy who doesn’t feel comfortable with his family’s religion.

Question 18

Explain first-person narrative?

Answer 18

First-person narrative is easily identified by the use of I and me in the narration. The narrator is a person, animal, creature, or even object, who tells the story through his or her own eyes and ears. The reader is limited, then, to knowing only what the narrator knows.

Question 19

Explain third-person limited?

Answer 19

In a third- person limited narrative, the story still follows one main character, but it is told more from the perspective of a close observer, as if the narrator were shadowing the main character. The narrator uses the character’s name and the third-person pronouns. The reader still primarily sees and hears only what happens in that character’s presence.

Question 20

Explain third-person omniscient?

Answer 20

The third-person omniscient narrator is like a ghost, able to move from person to person, room to room, city to city. Characters are referred to by name and by third person pronouns, but while there still may be one or a few main characters, the narrator can see them all — and show them to the reader — at any time.

Question 21

Name and describe the seven common poetry structures used in elementary and middle school classrooms?

Answer 21

Lyric poems describe a speaker’s thoughts and feelings. Narrative poems are long poems that tell stories. Haiku have a specific structure and capture a fleeting moment in nature. Odes celebrate or praise. Elegies mourn. Ballads are song-like narrative poems, often of folk origin. Concrete poems use words to form a shape representative of the poem’s subject.

Question 22

Describe rhyme?

Answer 22

Rhyme is a repetition of similar sounding words occurring at the ends of lines of poems or songs.

Question 23

Define repetition?

Answer 23

Repetition repeats the same words or phrases a few times to make an idea clearer.