Bell Ringer

Define the following terms:

Elements of a Story
What you need to know!
Story Elements

Setting
Characters
Plot
Conflict
Resolution
Point of View
Theme
Setting

• Setting is the “where and

when” of a story. It is the time
and place during which the
story takes place.
Setting
Setting
Time and place are where the action occurs

Details that describe:

 Furniture
 Scenery
 Customs
 Transportation
 Clothing
 Dialects
 Weather
 Time of day
 Time of year
The Functions of a Setting

To create a mood or

atmosphere
To show a reader a
different way of life
To make action
seem more real
To be the source of
conflict or struggle
To symbolize an idea
Mood
• Mood is the feeling that the author tries to
convey throughout the story. The atmosphere
or emotional condition created by the piece,
within the setting. Does the author want the
reader to be frightened or sad, or does the
story make the reader laugh and think happy
thoughts?
• To figure out mood, examine how you feel
while reading the story. Often mood is
conveyed by the story’s setting.
Characters
• The person,
animals, and
things
participating
in a story
 Characters

• Protagonist and antagonist are used to describe

characters.
• The protagonist is the main character of the story, the
one with whom the reader identifies. This person is not
necessarily “good”.
• The antagonist is the force in opposition of the
protagonist; this person may not be “bad” or “evil”, but
he/she opposes the protagonist in a significant way
Plot (definition)
• Plot is the organized
pattern or sequence of
events that make up a
story.
• Plot is the literary
element that describes
the structure of a story. It
shows arrangement of
events and actions within
a story.
Parts of a Plot
Exposition - introduction; characters, setting
and conflict (problem) are introduced
Rising Action- events that occur as result of
central conflict
Climax- highest point of interest or suspense
of a story
Falling Action - tension eases; events show
the results of how the main character begins
to resolve the conflict
Resolution- loose ends are tied up; the
conflict is solved
Plot Diagram
3

4
2
1
5
1. Exposition
• This usually occurs at the beginning of a short
story. Here the characters are introduced. We
also learn about the setting of the story. Most
importantly, we are introduced to the main
conflict (main problem).
 2. Rising Action
• This part of the story begins to develop the conflict(s).
A building of interest or suspense occurs and leads to
the climax. Complications arise
 3. Climax
• This is the turning point of the story. Usually the main
character comes face to face with a conflict. The
main character will change in some way. This is the
most intense moment.
4. Falling Action
• Action that follows the
climax and ultimately
leads to the resolution
 5. Resolution
• The conclusion; all loose
ends are tied up.
• Either the character
defeats the problem,
learns to live with the
problem, or the problem
defeats the character.
Putting It All Together
1. Exposition Beginning of
Story
2. Rising Action

Middle of Story
3. Climax

4. Falling Action
End of Story
5. Resolution
Diagram of Plot
Climax

Ac nt/

Fal on
n

Act
in g m e
t io

ling
Ris velop

i
De

Introduction
/ Exposition Resolution
Setting, characters,
and conflict are
introduced
Special Techniques used in a Story
Suspense- excitement, tension, curiosity
Foreshadowing- hint or clue about what will
happen in story
Flashback- interrupts the normal sequence
of events to tell about something that
happened in the past
Symbolism – use of specific objects or
images to represent ideas
Personification – when you make a thing,
idea or animal do something only humans do
Surprise Ending - conclusion that reader
does not expect
 Conflict
Conflict is the dramatic struggle
between two forces in a story.
Without conflict, there is no plot.
 Conflict
Conflict is a problem that must be solved; an issue
between the protagonist and antagonist forces. It forms
the basis of the plot.
Conflicts can be external or internal
External conflict- outside force may be
person, group, animal, nature, or a
nonhuman obstacle
Internal conflict- takes place in a
character’s mind
Types of External Conflict

Character vs Character

Character vs Nature

Character vs Society

Character vs Fate QuickTime™ and a

TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Type of Internal Conflict

Character vs. Self

Point of View
• First Person Point of View- a
character from the story is telling
the story; uses the pronouns “I”
and “me”

• Third Person Point of View- an

outside narrator is telling the
story; uses the pronouns “he”,
“she”, “they”
Types of Third-Person
Point of View
• Third-Person
• Third-Person Omniscient
Limited • The narrator knows the
• The narrator thoughts and feeling of
knows the ALL the characters in a
thoughts and story.
feelings on only
ONE character in
a story.
 Theme
The theme is the central, general message, the
main idea, the controlling topic about life or
people the author wants to get across through a
literary work
To discover the theme of a story, think big. What big
message is the author trying to say about the world
in which we live?
What is this story telling me about how life works, or
how people behave?
The Theme is also
• the practical lesson ( moral) that we learn from a
story after we read it. The lesson that teaches us
what to do or how to behave after you have learned
something from a story or something that has
happened to you.

Example: The lesson or teaching of the story is be

careful when you’re offered something for nothing.
• Watch the video on How to get the theme of a
short story.

• [Link]
v=k8muSkXjPHE
Any questions?
Figurative Language
“Figuring it Out”
 Figurative and Literal Language

Literally: words function exactly as defined

The car is blue.
He caught the football.

Figuratively: figure out what it means

I’ve got your back.

You’re a doll.
^Figures of Speech
Simile

Comparison of two things using “like” or “as.”

Examples

The metal twisted like a ribbon.

She is as sweet as candy.

 Important!

Using “like” or “as” doesn’t make a simile.

A comparison must be made.

Not a Simile: I like pizza.

Simile: The moon is like a pizza.

Metaphor

Two things are compared without using “like” or “as.”

Examples

All the world is a stage.

Men are dogs.

Her heart is stone.

Personification

Giving human traits to objects or ideas.

Examples

The sunlight danced.

Water on the lake shivers.

The streets are calling me.

 Hyperbole
Exaggerating to show strong feeling or effect.

Examples

I will love you forever.

My house is a million miles away.

She’d kill me.

Understatement

Expression with less strength than expected.

The opposite of hyperbole.

I’ll be there in one second.

This won’t hurt a bit.

Onomatopoeia

• A word that “makes” a sound

• SPLAT
• PING
• SLAM
• POP
• POW
Idiom

• A saying that isn’t meant to be taken literally.

• Doesn’t “mean” what it says
• Don’t be a stick in the mud!
• You’re the apple of my eye.
• I have an ace up my sleeve.
Proverb

• A figurative saying in which a bit of “wisdom”

is given.
• An apple a day keeps the doctor away
• The early bird catches the worm
Oxymoron

• When two words are put together that

contradict each other. “Opposites”
• containing words that seem to contradict each
other.

• "Modern dancing is so old fashioned." - Samuel

Goldwyn
• "I am a deeply superficial person." - Andy
Warhol
• "We're busy doing nothing." - Bing Crosby
Elements of Poetry
 Elements of Poetry
•What is poetry?

•Poetry is a form of literary expression that captures

intense experiences or creative perceptions of the
world in a musical language.
Distinguishing Characteristics of Poetry

• Unlike prose which has a narrator, poetry has a speaker.

• A speaker, or voice, talks to the reader. The speaker is
not necessarily the poet. It can also be a fictional
person, an animal or even a thing

Example
But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you.
from “Once Upon a Time” by Gabriel Okara
Distinguishing Characteristics of Poetry
• Poetry is also formatted differently from
prose.
– A line is a word or row of words that may or
may not form a complete sentence.
– A stanza is a group of lines forming a unit. The
stanzas in a poem are separated by a space.
Example
Open it.

Go ahead, it won’t bite.

Well…maybe a little.
from “The First Book” by Rita Dove
 Figures of Speech

• A figure of speech is a word or expression that is not

meant to be read literally.

• A simile is a figure of speech using a word such as

like or as to compare seemingly unlike things.

Example
Does it stink like rotten meat?
from “Harlem” by Langston Hughes
 Figures of Speech
• A metaphor also compares seemingly unlike things, but does
not use like or as.
Example
the moon is a white sliver
from “I Am Singing Now” by Luci Tapahonso

• Personification attributes human like

characteristics to an animal, object, or idea.
Example
A Spider sewed at Night
from “A Spider sewed at Night” by Emily Dickinson
 Figures of Speech
• Hyperbole – a figure of speech in which great exaggeration is
used for emphasis or humorous effect.
Example
“You’ve asked me a million times!”

• Imagery is descriptive language that applies

to the senses – sight, sound, touch, taste, or
smell. Some images appeal to more than one
sense.
Sound Devices

• Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the

beginning of words.

• Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within a

line of poetry.

• Onomatopoeia is the use of a word or phrase, such as

“hiss” or “buzz” that imitates or suggests the sound of
what it describes.
Rhyme

• Rhyme is the repetition of the same stressed

vowel sound and any succeeding sounds in two or
more words.
• Internal rhyme occurs within a line of poetry.
• End rhyme occurs at the end of lines.
• Rhyme scheme is the pattern of end rhymes that
may be designated by assigning a different letter
of the alphabet to each new rhyme
Example

“All mine!" Yertle cried. "Oh, the things I now rule! A

I'm king of a cow! And I'm king of a mule! A
I'm king of a house! And what's more, beyond that, B
I'm king of a blueberry bush and cat! B
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me! C
For I am the ruler of all that I see!” C
from “Yertle the Turtle”
by Dr. Seuss
Connotation and Denotation

Connotation - the emotional and imaginative association

surrounding a word.

Denotation - the strict dictionary meaning of a word.

Example: You may live in a house, but we live in

a home.
Elements of Poetry

When we explore the connotation and

denotation of a poem, we are looking at the
poet’s diction.

Diction – the choice of words by an author or

poet.

Many times, a poet’s diction can help unlock the

tone or mood of the poem.
 Elements of Poetry: Tone and Mood

Although many times we use the words mood and tone

interchangeably, they do not necessarily mean the same
thing.
Mood – the feeling or atmosphere that a poet creates.
Mood can suggest an emotion (ex. “excited”) or the quality
of a setting (ex. “calm”, “somber”) In a poem, mood can be
established through word choice, line length, rhythm, etc.
Tone – a reflection of the poet’s attitude toward the subject
of a poem. Tone can be serious, sarcastic, humorous, etc.
Haikus

• The traditional Japanese haiku is an unrhymed poem

that contains exactly 17 syllables, arranged in 3 lines
of 5, 7, 5 syllables each.
• However, when poems written in Japanese are
translated into another language, this pattern is often
lost.
• The purpose of a haiku is to capture a flash of
insight that occurs during a solitary observation of
nature.
Examples of Haikus
Since morning glories
hold my well-bucket hostage
I beg for water
First autumn morning:
- Chiyo-ni
the mirror I stare into
shows my father’s face.
- Kijo Murakami
Sonnets

• Background of Sonnets
• Form invented in Italy.
• Most if not all of Shakespeare’s sonnets
are about love or a theme related to love.
• Sonnets are usually written in a series
with each sonnet a continuous subject to
the next. (Sequels in movies)
Free Verse

• Free verse is poetry that has no fixed pattern of

meter, rhyme, line length, or stanza arrangement.
• When writing free verse, a poet is free to vary the
poetic elements to emphasize an idea or create a
tone.
• In writing free verse, a poet may choose to use
repetition or similar grammatical structures to
emphasize and unify the ideas in the poem.
Free Verse

• While the majority of popular poetry today is

written as free verse, the style itself is not new.
Walt Whitman, writing in the 1800’s, created
free verse poetry based on forms found in the
King James Bible.
• Modern free verse is concerned with the creation
of a brief, ideal image, not the refined ordered
(and artificial, according to some critics)
patterns that other forms of poetry encompass.
Example of Free Verse

The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirmed case,

He will never sleep any more as he did it in the cot in his mother’s bedroom;
The dour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
He turns is quid of tobacco, his eyes blurred with the manuscript;
The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomist’s table,
What is removed drops horribly in the pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the stand….the drunkard nods by the barroom
stove…

Excerpt from “Song of Myself” (section 15)

Walt Whitman
• Genre - Examples and Definition of Genre -
Literary Devices

• [Link]

• Tendero, E.& Mora, H. (2008). World

literature: the literary masterpieces of the
world. Metro Manila. Grandwater Publications