Writing Material Part 3 Flashcards
Plot Devices
Elements of plot that operate to cause or resolve conflicts and to provide information.
Ex: Foreshadowing.
Plot
Arrangement of events in a story. What happens in the story.
Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, Joe and his family meet up, go to California, search for jobs, and live in various camps. In the end, the only benefit the gain is unity.
Poem
At the heart of Dr. Rosenblatt’s theory…” is the idea of the poem as an event in the life of the reader, as a doing, a making, a combustion fed by the coming together of a particular personality and a particular text at a particular time.” Louise Rosenblatt’s term for the interpretive moment when reader and text connect. In normal definitions, a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure or something that arouses strong emotions because of its beauty.
Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, this occurs when Steinbeck first describes the surrounding setting with figurative language.
Polyptoton
A rhetorical term for the repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings.
Ex 1: “I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living.”
Ex 2: “Choosy Mothers Choose Jif.”
Ex 3: “The things you own end up owning you.”
Polysyndeton
Repetition of conjunctions in close succession.
Ex: “We have ships and men and money and stores.”
And is the conjunction being repeatedly said.
Premise, Major
The first premise in a syllogism. The major premise states an irrefutable generalization.
Ex: All men are mortal.
Prosopopoeia
The giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects.
Ex: The window winked at me.
Pun
A play on words. Types of puns include anataclasis, words that sound alike but have different meanings; paranomasia, words alike in sound but different in meaning; and syllepsis, a word used differently in relation to two other words it governs or modifies.
Ex: “I moss say I’m taking a lichen to that fungi.”
Haha, that’s so punny. Get it? wink wink
Purpose
The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text. Also called aim and intention. In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order in invent material, the words the speaker or writer uses to describe the reason something happened or happens in a particular situation. Purpose, which is associated with meaning and answers the question “why?”, indicates that the agent seeks unity through identification with an ultimate meaning of life. Reflects the world view of mysticism
Ex: In Pride, Dagoberto Gilb’s aim is to define pride and what it means to him.
Reader’s Repertoire
The collection of predictions and revisions a person employs when reading a text. Your literary repertoire simply means the works and concepts of literature with which you are familiar. What has your experience with various works taught you? Our repertoire includes the strategies and techniques of literature as well.
Ex: If, for example, you have been fooled by a surprise ending a few times, you have learned that the outcome suggested by a story’s line of development may not, in fact, be the way it turns out. You have learned from experience to be wary of the possibility of a surprise ending.
Recursive
Referring to the moving back and forth from invention to revision in the process of writing.
Ex: In writing my research paper, I invent material and revise previously invented material.
Refutation
In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker would anticipate objections to the points being raised and counter them.
Ex: Julius Caesar used this method in his speeches to better argue his point.
Reliable Narrator
A believable, trustworthy commentator on events and characters in a story.
Ex: In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is a reliable narrator, though somewhat secretive.
Repitition
In a text, repeated use of sounds, words, phrases, or clauses to emphasize meaning or achieve effect.
Ex 1: The dog ran, the dog jumped, and the dog whimpered.
Ex 2:”‘Hot!’ said the conductor to familiar faces. ‘Some Weather! … Hot! … Hot! … Hot! … Is it hot enough … ‘” (Fitzgerald 121).
Rhetor
The speaker who uses elements of rhetoric (diction, scheme, trope, argument, and syntax) effectively in oral or written text.
Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald is the rhetor in The Great Gatsby.
Rhetoric
The art of analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, reader, or listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective; the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners in a situation.
Ex: Diction, scheme, trope, argument, and syntax.
Rhetorical Intention
Involvement and investment in and ownership of a piece of writing.
Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby has rhetorical intention.
Rhetorical Question
A question posed by the speaker or writer not to seek an answer but instead to affirm or deny a point simply by asking a question about it.
Ex: “Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” (Shakespeare).
Rhetorical Situation
The convergence in a situation of exigency (the need to write), audience, and purpose. The context of a rhetorical act, made up (at a minimum) of a rhetor, an issue (or exigence), and an audience. Put another way, a rhetorical situation occurs when a rhetor, an audience, a medium (such as a text or speech), and a context converge to create a rhetorical act, such as writing or speaking.
Ex: Before drafting my research paper, I had to analyze my purpose and how much background information to provide for my audience.
Rhetorical Triangle
A diagram showing the relations of writer or speaker, reader or listener, and text in a rhetorical situation.
Romance Language
A language that is derived from Latin.
Ex: French, Italian.
Round Character
A figure with complexity in action and personality,
Ex: Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Sarcasm
The use of mockery or bitter irony.
Ex: “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh!”
Scenic Narration
Narration in which an event or a moment of a plot is stretched out for dramatic effect.
Ex: In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the scene in which Myrtle is accidentally killed.
