Fiction vs Nonfiction
o Fiction
 Fake – either characters, events, or both are made-up
o Nonfiction
 Setting and people are real
 Biographies, autobiographies
Short Stories
o “The Three-Century Woman”
 Narrator:
Megan
1st person
 Setting:
January 2001
a room in Whispering Oaks (Elder Care Facility)
 Characters:
Mrs. Breckenridge
o Lived for three centuries
o Talks to reporter
 Pretends to remember the Hindenberg
 Lies because she’s angry that the reporter cares more about her
memories than who she is as a person
Megan
o 14
o Reluctant to visit great-grandmother because she’s boring
o Discovers she is lively and funny and decides to visit more often
o “An American Childhood”
 POV – 1st person (Annie)
 Characters:
Man:
o Red hair, skinny, from city, drives black buick
o Got out of car and chased kids to teach them a lesson
Annie:
o Tomboy (likes football)
o 7 years old
o Daring, troublemaker
 Theme:
p53 “But if you flung yourself wholeheartedly” and “diving fearlessly”
p56 “You have to fling yourself at what you are doing, you have to point yourself, forget
yourself, aim, dive”
**There’s a certain joy and happiness you get when you “fling” or push yourself in life to
do your best – nothing was as exciting as that chase for Annie, because she put
everything into it.
o “All Summer in a Day”
 Setting:
Venus – has forests
During a day in the future
o
Raining (all the time); sun comes out once every seven years for a day
 Characters: Margot
Looks: blond hair, blue eyes, pale, delicate
Likes sun – remembers it because she’s from Earth unlike other children and moved to
Venus at 4 years old
9 years old
Shy, quiet, frail
Dislikes shower because reminds her of rain; rain drives her crazy
Disliked by other children because she’s different – other children show her disrespect
by locking her in the closet, then kids go out in the sun
 Lesson/Theme:
Letting a person pick on another can hurt you
Don’t be part of the crowd
“Papa’s Parrot”
 Narrator: outsider/author (3rd person)
 Setting: Candy shop 1960’s
 Characters
Harry: Protagonist (main character)
o 12 years old
o Friends go to a burger place and play video games, buy records
o Stops going to candy store because not interested in candy
o Friendly with dad at home, ignores and is embarrassed by dad at store
o Throws candy at Rocky (parrot) because he feels bad/guilty that his dad misses
him
Mr. Tillian
o Runs candy shop
o Harry’s dad;
o enjoys Harry’s company most
o decides to buy a parrot (Rocky) when Harry stops visiting candy shop
 Plot
Harry would visit Mr. Tillian at candy shop
Harry became interested in other things and had more spending money
Mr. Tillian became lonely and bought a parrot
o Parrots talk and provide company
Harry becomes embarrassed of his father and the candy shop but at home is not
embarrassed and continues to joke and is friends with dad
Mr. Tillian becomes ill (heart attack)
Harry goes to unpack boxes, sort the contents, and care for Rocky
Rocky says “Where’s Harry?”
Harry becomes angry and cries because he realizes how lonely his father was and feels
bad
Harry decides to visit more often
 Conflict
Between Harry and Mr. Tillian
o Harry is embarrassed by Mr. Tillian talking to parrot
o Cleans shop when parrot says, “Where’s Harry?”
 Resolution: Harry decides to visit more – dads more important than being cool
o “Seventh Grade”
 Setting:
1st day of 7th grade at school
Fresno, CA
Present-day
 Characters: Victor
Spanish (speaks Spanish and English)
Not afraid to try new things
Likes a girl named Teresa
Shy, quiet
Picking grapes for fall clothes shows that Victor is hardworking (& poor)
 Plot
Victor likes Teresa and both in French class together
Mr. Bueller (French teacher) asks if anyone in the class speaks French
Victor raises his hand
Teacher speaks to Victor in French
Victor tries to make French noises
Teacher knows Victor doesn’t speak French
After class Teresa takes interest in Victor and speaks to him about getting help with
French
Teacher overhears but doesn’t say anything
Victor decides he likes the seventh grade (and is going to work on his French, for 2
reasons…)
 Conflict: Victor likes a girl, lies to teacher
 Resolution: teacher doesn’t ruin Victor’s chance with Teresa
 POV: 3rd person narrator – outside person
Short Story terms
o Short story: a brief account in prose of fictional events
o Plot: the sequence of events in a story
o Conflict: a struggle between two forces
o Resolution: the final outcome of a story
o Narrator: the person who tells the story
o Climax: the point of highest interest and involvement in a story
o Setting: the time and place in which a story takes place
o Theme: a general statement about life; main idea of story
o Foreshadowing: clues to prepare reader for events that will happen later on in story
o Flashback: a scene that’s out of order with the plot to show events that have happened in the past
Nonfiction
o “The Fall of the Hindenburg”
 Explodes into flames while landing
 Non-fiction piece
o “Bernie Williams: Yankee Doodle Dandy”
 Biography (story about Bernie Williams not written by Bernie Williams)
 Bernie Williams:
Well-rounded
o As a child, his parents made him participate in extra-curricular activities like
guitar, track, baseball, etc
o His parents did it to keep him safe
Had to choose between college and baseball, and his mother encouraged to continue
his education, where as his dad encouraged him to play baseball.
Got signed in the minors and got frustrated and almost quit but his mom encouraged
him to keep trying because he had “worked too hard to quit”
o “No Gumption” by Russell Baker
 Autobiography because it’s a story about Russell by Russell
 Gumption: courage or enterprise
Russell Baker was forced by his mom to sell copies of the newspaper to help him gain
“gumption”
Wasted on Doris (little sister) because she was a girl, and in the past, girls were only
allowed to become teachers and nerses
 Mother
o encouraged the narrator to make something of himself and kept trying
o when the salesman position (selling newspapers) didn’t work out she saw a
paper which was well-written and decided that maybe Russell could be a writer
o Russell’s mom didn’t hate him – she just wanted him to gain a work ethic (to not
be lazy and lay around reading comic books and listening to the radio
o “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” was her battle cry, her phrase to
encourage young Russell
Vocabulary
o Strategy: set of plans used to gain success or achieve an aim
o Improvising: making up or inventing on the spur of the moment
o Resumed: began again, continued
o Compelled: forced
o Ignored: paid no attention to
o Using context clues
Poetry Terms: be able to define and give examples (given an example)
o Poetry: imaginative writing in which languages, images, sound, and rhythm combine to create a certain
emotional effect
o Onomatopoeia: the use of words that imitate sounds
o Metaphor: compares two unlike things; describes something as something else (direct comparison)
o Simile: comparison using “like” or “as”
o Stanza: a group of lines that form a unit in a poem
o Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words
o Rhyme: repetition of same sounds usually at the end of words
o Rhythm: pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in spoken or written language
o Personification: gives human-like qualities to something non-human
o Repetition: element repeated (word or phrase or line)
o Meter: rhythm pattern – look at stressed and unstressed symbols ( ‘ ˘)
Types of Poems
o Narrative poem: tells a story in verse
o Lyric poem: expresses thoughts and feelings through highly musical verse
o
Concrete poem: poem is in the shape of the object it describes
 Example on page 528 of literature book “Forsythia”
o Haiku: Japanese verse poem 3 lines; 5-7-5 syllables; usually about nature
Rhyme pattern: be able to identify as which lines rhyme
Poems:
o “The Desert Is My Mother”
 Personification
Desert does things a human mother would, such as feeds, sings, teaches, etc
 Alliteration
“prickly pear”
“she strokes my skin”
 Metaphor
Title is a metaphor – comparing a desert to a mother
 Repetition
“I say ________ me”
“She ____________”
“The desert is my mother” then “The desert is my strong mother”
o “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
 Alliteration
His house; his harness
Whose woods
Only other
Watch his words
Sound’s the sheep
Dark and deep
 Rhyme
AABA
 Repetition
“And miles to go before I sleep”
 Meaning
Sleep is a metaphor for death
A lot of life left to live – keep going even when times get rough
o “Forsythia”
 Concrete poem
 Describes forsythia plant
o “Life”
 Free verse
 Compares life to a watch
 Plot/meaning
Life is Father Time’s toy. He amuses the young with it, then gets bored and lets people
die.
Person who holds clock = Father time
Lets the watch run down = death
o Basho’s “Haiku”
 Haiku


Break of day through evening (1 stanza per part of day)
Haikus are about nature, and show the author’s opinion of nature
Basho is observant of nature
Enjoys and appreciates it
And describes it with a sense of wonder and surprise
o “Maestro”
 Poem about violin player
Mexican
Accomplished musician
Remembers his parents when he plays on stage
Inspired by and learned from his parents
 Repetition:
“bows” ends 2 lines
“again and again”
“bit by bit”
“note by note”
 Metaphor
A note of music is sweet on the tongue
 Alliteration
Bit by bit
Snare with strings
He hears her
o “Bailando”
 Repetition
“spinning round and round” – shows movement of poem (life never stops either)
 Story remembers aunt as someone who loves to dance
 Compare aunt as young then old (black vs white hair, dancing vs tottering walk)
 Poem has sense of constant movement – hair blowing, dress swaying, dancing through 90 years
old
Research paper:
o Parts:
 Works cited page: list of sources used in a research paper
 Citation: states the source of a quote, fact, or idea in a research paper
 Topic sentence: first sentence of a body paragraph
 Thesis statement: A statement of opinion with the main point of an essay, usually located as the
last sentence in the introduction.
 Notecards:
Paraphrase: when you rephrase an author’s ideas into your own words
Quotation: when you use an author’s idea in the author’s words
Summarize: when you take all the information and simplify it into your own idea
o Plagiarism: to present the ideas or words of another as one’s own
Essay questions on:
o Bearstone: Cloyd: know examples and details about this main character for entire story
o Number the Stars: Fiction vs Nonfiction in a historical fiction book; provide examples
o Short Stories: Identifying and giving specific examples of terms in various stories