Glossary of Writing and Literary Terms

 

Word
Description

Acrostics

 

A saying or sentence where the first letter of each word in the saying will help you remember how to spell a word, or the order of things. Two examples of acrostics are:

1. A Rat In The House Might Eat The Ice Cream - the first letter of each word spells ARITHMETIC

2. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas - Helps you remember the order of the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto)
Adjective A word that describes a noun. They tell how many, what kind or which one.
Adverb A word that describes a verb. They tell how something happened, when it happened, where it happened, or how much happened.
Alliteration Repeating the beginning sounds in a word, like Reading and Writing are Really Rad!
Antonym Words whose meanings are opposite, like stop and go.
Autobiography Telling a story about your own life.
Bibliography A list of people, books, magazines, web sites and other resources that you used to create a report.
Biography Telling a story about someone else's life.
Body of Paragraph The supporting, or detail sentences that help explain or describe the topic sentence
Book Review A summary of a book you read sharing your thoughts and feeling about the book.
Brainstorming Collecting ideas on a subject.
Business Letter A letter written to someone to get information, or to talk about a problem.
Caption A brief summary or description of the importance of a picture, graph, or diagram.
Character A person, animal, or make believe creature that is part of a story, play or poem.
Closing Sentence The summary or conclusion sentence at the end of a paragraph
Compound Sentence Two or more sentences put together using the words and, but, or or.
Consonant Blend

When two or more consonants are combined together, at the beginning of a word:

br- pr- fl- sk- sw- thr-
cr- tr- gl- sm- tw- spr-
dr- wr- pl- sn- scr- spl-
fr- bl- sl- sp- squ- shr-
gr- cl- sc- st- str- sch-

 
Consonants All the letters in the alphabet, except for a,e,i,o, and u.
Descriptive Paragraph A paragraph that describes a person, a place, a feeling or an idea.
Dialogue When the characters in a story are speaking - usually dialogue is in quotation marks.
Editing Carefully checking for any mistakes you made.
Essay A group of paragraphs telling facts about one main idea
Expository Paragraph A paragraph that gives information on a topic, or steps explaining how to do something.
Family Stories Important people, places and events that really happened in your own family.
Fantasy A story that combines normal life with imaginary events.
Friendly Letter A letter that you write to a friend or your family.
Grammar Rules of a language.
Graphic Organizer Ways to organize your thoughts before you start writing. There are many different kinds of graphic organizers including lists, charts, webs, cluster diagrams, and time lines.
Historical Fiction A made up story that uses real events and people to tell a story about a time from the past.
How-To or Directions Paragraph Giving step by step information or directions on how to make or do something.
Interview Asking a person or a group of people questions about their lives and experiences.
Journal A diary or record of events, feelings and thoughts, usually arranged by date.
Letter Body The main message of the letter.
Letter Closing The ending of your letter. Some examples of a closing are Love, Sincerely, or Yours truly.
Letter Heading The part of a letter, usually in the upper right corner, that has your address and the date.
Letter Signature Signing your name after the closing of a letter.
Metaphor Comparing two different things without using the words like or as.
Moral The lesson of a story.
Myth An imaginary story that helps explain events in nature.
Narrative Paragraph A paragraph that tells a story.
Narrator The person or character that tells and explains a story.
Newspaper Byline The name of the person who wrote the newspaper story.
Newspaper Headline The title of the newspaper story that tells the main idea of the story.
Observation Describing in writing what something looks like, sounds like, smells like and feels like.
Onomatopoeia Words whose sounds imitate or make you think of their meaning, like buzz, sizzle and hiss.
Palindrome A word or phrase that is spelled the same forwards as it is backwards, like mom, and Ma handed Edna ham.
Paragraph A group of sentences that tell about one main subject. There are 4 main types of paragraphs. 1.Desriptive 2.Narrative 3.Persausive 4.Expository
Personal Narrative A true story about yourself.
Personification Describing something that isn't human with human characteristics.
Persuasive Paragraph A paragraph that tells your opinion and tries to convince the reader to agree with you.
Play A story told using a narrator and conversation between characters.
Plot The main events in a story.
Poem A group of words written in a pattern.
Prefix A group of letters that comes before a base or root word that change the meaning of the word.
Prewriting What you do before you write, choose a topic, gather ideas and resources.
Proofreading Reading what you wrote to look for mistakes.
Publishing When you share your final writing with other people.
Realistic Story Made up stories that could be true.
Revising Making changes that improve your writing.
Rough Draft The first organized writing of the topic that you do.
Run-On Sentence Two or more sentences put together without punctuation or connecting words.
Sentence Fragment A sentence that is missing the subject, the verb, or both.
Simile Comparing two different things using the words like or as.
Skimming Getting the main idea of a story by looking quickly for the main topics and ideas. You can look at titles, headings, bold and italic words, and picture captions.
Subject The main idea of your writing. There can be a subject in a sentence, paragraph, an essay or a book.
Suffix A group of letters that comes after a base or root word that change the meaning of the word.
Summary Retelling the main idea of a story by briefly writing about the main topics.
Synonym Different words that have the same meaning, like big, large and enormous.
Tall Tales Stories that really exaggerate a hero - the hero can do anything and beat anybody!
Topic Sentences The sentence, usually at the beginning of a paragraph, that tells what the main idea of the paragraph is about.
Verb The word in a sentence that does action.
Vowels Five of the letters in the alphabet: a, e, i, o, and u. Sometimes the letter y is also a vowel, like in the word sky.

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