1. Pull your devices from the list below (I’ll give you the handout tomorrow).
2. Find an example “in the wild” (song lyrics are okay, but see if you can’t find an example outside of literature)
3. Think about your explanation. The objective here is to figure out why something is the way it is, rather than just pointing it out. If your explanation is “This picture of a car wash sign has a bubble that is popping, and it says, ‘Pop!’ That’s onomatopoeia!” you might want to re-think your example.
4. You don’t need to write your explanation down at this point, but you should be ready to defend and explain your choice in class.
5. Bring it to class tomorrow. If it is online, you can post a link below. If it is in your camera/phone, email it to me.

Example explanation from class:

Stewie’s sarcastic retort to the girl’s insult highlights (and draws out) the fact that it is an old reference (allusion!). By re-stating what she said in a sarcastic tone, he turns her own words against her.

• Allegory—(usually) simple story that portrays some moral through the actions of characters.
• Alliteration—repeating consonant (letters that aren’t vowels) sounds at the beginning of words. (See  consonance)
• Allusion—reference to something outside the work being read
• Analogy—comparison between two things using “like” or “as,” often used to make a logical point
• Climax—the point of highest action or development of the plot; the succession of increasingly important words, phrases, or clauses.
• One equal temper of heroic hearts,/Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
• Conflict—opposition of forces in a work
• [Who is the main character? Who opposes him or her? Are there other forces working against the characters? Types of Conflict: person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. fate, person vs. self, person vs. society]
• Connotation—the meaning of a word within the context of a written work
• Consonance—repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words. (See alliteration)
• Couplet—a pair of lines in a poem; if they rhyme, it’s a rhyming couplet
• Ex: I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies/This is the dawning of the rest of our lives (Green Day, American Idiot, “Holiday”)
• Denotation—the literal, dictionary definition of a word
• Diction—the author’s word choice
• Ex: The sentence “Adam walked quickly across the yard” seems okay, but if the author changed walked quickly to lurched, hurried, or quick-stepped, it would be a much more precise sentence.
• Flashback—device utilizing a shift in time during a narrative. Usually in order to expose the back story of a character in a way that sheds light on a current situation. We are doing a similar thing in Brit Lit—by “folding” the chronology of or books in half, we can compare current works with older ones.
• Ex: J.D. in Scrubs has a flashback almost every episode. Family Guy also contains many flashbacks, but almost always for absurd comedic effect.
• Foreshadowing—Symbol or reference in a narrative that hints at a future event. Authors use this in a way similar to flashbacks, but it is often less obvious.
• Hyperbole—dramatic overstatement. Allows us to add emotional weight to a statement.
• Ex: Chris knew the whole school laughed at him when he tripped on the first day.
• Imagery—verbal representation of sensory information; can be visual (sight), auditory (sound), tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), or gustatory (taste)
• Irony—usually humorous device in which a character says the opposite of what is intended, or an event’s outcome is the opposite of what is expected. We use irony to highlight the difference between things as they are and the things that could be.
• Metaphor—using one kind of thing to represent another without express indication of the representation
• Meter—poetic rhythm pattern; can be iambic (unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable), trochaic (stressed then unstressed), dactylic (stressed then two unstressed), or anapestic (two unstressed then stressed). As poetry was originally performed for an audience, rhythm allowed the speaker to involve the listeners—think about clapping or dancing at a concert.
• Personification—a figure of speech in which non-human things are given human characteristics.
• Ex: The television stared into the empty living room searching for attention.
• Simile—comparison of two things using “like” or “as”
• Symbol—something concrete that stands for something abstract outside the work, or recalls something else inside the work; something that means more than what it is physically used for.

Post questions or links below.