Sophomore Honors Summer Reading2015-2016

In addition to the required summer reading assignment choice for grades 9-10, Sophomore Honors students are required to read the following:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer The packet of selected poetry and questions provided by the honors teacher

At the start of the school year, Sophomore Honors students should return with the following:

1. A completed character sheet for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (this may be handwritten);2. A reading response assignment for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, outlined on the attached

worksheet, typed;3. The poetry packet, with questions completed and free response written, typed;4. A synthesis response, as outlined on the last sheet of the packet, typed.

An in class assessment may follow the completion of an in class discussion of the summer assignments.

If you have any questions over the summer, you may contact me, Mrs. Harter, at my school email: mharter@somervilleschools.org. I will respond in as timely a manner as possible.

Recommended for class next year:

A 3 ring binder with dividers (about 4) separate from other classes – we will discuss the organization of this in September. Notebooks may be collected and assessed as a classwork grade each marking period. This will help to keep notes, handouts, and graded assessments organized for quick reference.

A pack of 3x5 lined index cards for vocabulary (we will make flashcards each day).

PART ONE - MAJOR CHARACTERS ofExtremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Directions: Take notes on each of the major characters listed. You do not have to write in complete sentences, but you should record enough information to help you recall important facts and details during discussion.

Character Description

Oskar Schell

Oskar’s Mother“Mom”

Oskar’s Dad“Thomas, Jr.”

Oskar’s Grandmother“Grandma”

The Renter

Abby Black

Mr. Black

William Black

Ron

PART TWO: Reading ResponseExtremely loud and Incredibly Close

Background – Jonathan Safran Foer (born February 21, 1977) is an American writer. He is best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). In 2009, he published a work of nonfiction titled Eating Animals. While Foer's works have been released to widespread critical acclaim, he remains a somewhat polarizing figure among contemporary critics and academics, attracting in equal measure both passionate praise and criticism. Foer currently teaches creative writing at New York University.

Foer's second novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, was published in 2005. In the novel, Foer used 9/11 as a backdrop for the story of 9-year-old Oskar Schell, who learns how to deal with the death of his father in the World Trade Center. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close used many nontraditional writing techniques known as visual writing. It follows multiple but interconnected storylines, is peppered with photographs of doorknobs and other such oddities, and ends with a 14-page flipbook. Foer's use of these techniques resulted in both glowing praise and excoriation from critics. Despite diverse criticism, the novel sold briskly and was translated into several languages. In addition, Warner Bros. and Paramount turned the novel into a film, produced by Scott Rudin, directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Reader). (from Wikipedia.com)

For the reading assignment, come to class with the following typed response:

1. Individual Questioning: Create two thoughtful discussion questions about the reading and answer those questions with supporting evidence (cite textual examples) from the novel. This question should help to drive discussion of the novel – in other words, this is not a “yes” or “no” question, but one that requires debate, discussion, and analysis of the reading. Resist the urge to look for book group discussion questions on the web. The act of writing the question may be more important than the act of answering it—but I want you to do both. Literal questions will receive no points here. (20 pts. each – 40 points total)

PART THREE - Selected Poetry & Guided QuestionsDirections: For each poem, read the introductory information, the poem, and then answer the questions that follow. Use the literary terms reference guide that you were given to assist you in answering the questions. Look up any unfamiliar vocabulary and make a

note of the definition for better understanding. Answers do not have to be in complete sentences.

Poem A: “Before and After” by Julie Craig

“In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes?”--William Blake, “The Tyger”

Awakened from her slumbershe knew something had gone--a drowsy innocence,a complacent naitivity...suddenly, in rude simplicity,gone.

Shut against the world,thousands of deaths evade her eyes;their blood her ownspilled by her own--an indifference.

Their blood her own,in thousands (neither more nor less)suddenly, in rude simplicity,gone--

And now,some how,a difference.

© 2001, Julie Craig

1. How would you describe the structure of this poem (i.e. what is the rhyme scheme, meter, stanza structure)?

2. Using the glossary of literary devices provided, identify and list some of the literary devices the poet uses to enhance the reading of the piece.

3. Give examples of those literary devices from the poem.

4. How would you describe overall tone of this poem?

5. What, do you believe, may be the author’s message in this poem?

Poem B: “An American Solider” by Mary Hamrick

There is no final solution for wretched man,only a quest for good fellows to defy them.I am a revolutionary of true colorscarrying the weight of the worldin my immigrant red, white, and blue hands.Always puckering for a kiss of democracyI lay back and fall easily in lovewith my terrain.I know no war is an easy warbut I am aware that within its frenzy of gloomit reanimates the speechless.War,a place where madness in the eye of a flower seemsnormaland at the end of the stain of the day the beauty ofbeingis forever gone to a place where whimperingwillowy men and women are soon crushed bydangerous things in the crosscurrents of the air, thencrucified.How can we ignore miseryand deepen the darknessby laying back like reclining nudeswith faraway eyes? No grace, no grit, no honor.

For me it is not so simple.My eyes, like distant beacons,shield the will-less on their bordersand as the gray gulf pulls us close to themwe stand as one, waist-deep in lumps of earth wieldingour orange tambourinesand pray the goal of glorybecomes as visible and as dominantas the force of prairie lightning.

I am a soldier, your sweet protector(where old terrors mingle) creeping on until theirundoing.Sign of life,as I carry the world piece by piece.

©2001, Mary Hamrick

1. How would you describe the structure of this poem (i.e. what is the rhyme scheme, meter, stanza structure)?

2. Using the glossary of literary devices provided, identify and list some of the literary devices the poet uses to enhance the reading of the piece.

3. Give examples of those literary devices from the poem.

4. How would you describe the overall tone of this poem?

5. What, do you believe, may be the author’s message in this poem?

Poem C: “The Names” by Billy Collins (Collins was poet laureate of the United States in ___).September 6, 2002

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.A fine rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,Then Baxter and Calabro,Davis and Eberling, names falling into placeAs droplets fell through the dark.Names printed on the ceiling of the night.Names slipping around a watery bend.Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.In the morning, I walked out barefootAmong thousands of flowersHeavy with dew like the eyes of tears,And each had a name —Fiori inscribed on a yellow petalThen Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.Names written in the airAnd stitched into the cloth of the day.A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.Monogram on a torn shirt,I see you spelled out on storefront windowsAnd on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.I say the syllables as I turn a corner —Kelly and Lee,Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.When I peer into the woods,I see a thick tangle where letters are hiddenAs in a puzzle concocted for children.

Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.Names written in the pale sky.Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.Names silent in stoneOr cried out behind a door.Names blown over the earth and out to sea.In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.A boy on a lake lifts his oars.A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,And the names are outlined on the rose clouds —Vanacore and Wallace,(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.Names etched on the head of a pin.One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.A blue name needled into the skin.Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.Alphabet of names in green rows in a field.Names in the small tracks of birds.Names lifted from a hatOr balanced on the tip of the tongue.Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

Poem D: “Tomorrow” by Michael Brett, 2009

1. How would you describe the structure of this poem (i.e. what is the rhyme scheme, meter, stanza structure)?

2. Using the glossary of literary devices provided, identify and list some of the literary devices the poet uses to enhance the reading of the piece.

3. Give examples of those literary devices from the poem.

4. How would you describe the overall tone of this poem?

5. What, do you believe, may be the author’s message in this poem?

Tomorrow, it will all run backwards.

The steel tsunamis will froth back upwardsAnd become solid.The planes will be pulled out like javelinsAnd slide backwards, swallowing their vapour trails.

Tomorrow, everyone will be fine.

Tomorrow, everyone who died will come home.They will sit again at the tables of homeAnd rejoin life’s fellowship, its snapshots, teaAnd picnics.

Tomorrow, all will be well.

Everyone will sleep as babies do under mobiles,Untroubled by strange sounds, of aero enginesFlying too low and shadows over the streets.

Tomorrow, mobile phones will be just toys again.The sky will be clear, blue, unbroken.

© 2009, Michael Brett

1. How would you describe the structure of this poem (i.e. what is the rhyme scheme, meter, stanza structure)?

2. Using the glossary of literary devices provided, identify and list some of the literary devices the poet uses to enhance the reading of the piece.

3. Give examples of those literary devices from the poem.

4. How would you describe the overall tone of this poem?

5. What, do you believe, may be the author’s message in this poem?

Poem E: “My hero bares his nerves” by Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

My hero bares his nerves along my wristThat rules from wrist to shoulder,Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,Leans on my mortal ruler,The proud spine spurning turn and twist.

And these poor nerves so wired to the skullAche on the lovelorn paperI hug to love with my unruly scrawlThat utters all love hungerAnd tells the page the empty ill.

My hero bares my side and sees his heartTread, like a naked Venus,The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait;Stripping my loin of promise,He promises a secret heat.

He holds the wire from the box of nervesPraising the mortal errorOf birth and death, the two sad knaves of thieves,And the hunger’s emperor;He pulls the chain, the cistern moves.

1. How would you describe the structure of this poem (i.e. what is the rhyme scheme, meter, stanza structure)?

2. Using the glossary of literary devices provided, identify and list some of the literary devices the poet uses to enhance the reading of the piece.

3. Give examples of those literary devices from the poem.

4. How would you describe the overall tone of this poem?

5. What, do you believe, may be the author’s message in this poem?

Poem F: “Hero-Worship” by Amy Lowell

A face seen passing in a crowded street,A voice heard singing music, large and free;And from that moment life is changed, and weBecome of more heroic temper, meetTo freely ask and give, a man completeRadiant because of faith, we dare to beWhat Nature meant us. Brave idolatryWhich can conceive a hero! No deceit,No knowledge taught by unrelenting years,Can quench this fierce, untamable desire.We know that what we long for once achievedWill cease to satisfy. Be still our fears;If what we worship fail us, still the fireBurns on, and it is much to have believed.

1. How would you describe the structure of this poem (i.e. what is the rhyme scheme, meter, stanza structure)?

2. Using the glossary of literary devices provided, identify and list some of the literary devices the poet uses to enhance the reading of the piece.

3. Give examples of those literary devices from the poem.

4. How would you describe the overall tone of this poem?

5. What, do you believe, may be the author’s message in this poem?

PART FOUR - Selected Poetry Response

Free Response – Choose one of the poems and construct a free response. This response may be in first person if you wish, but should address your thoughts pertaining to the reading of the one of the poems. There is no set topic (hence free response), but should show thoughtful consideration of the reading. You do not necessarily need to discuss structure or any formal elements of the poem, but you may if you wish.

PART FIVE – Synthesis & Extension

Consider your reading of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and the selected poems. Respond to the following prompt in 1 or 2 well-organized paragraphs:

What is a hero?

This is a free response, so you may use first person. Be sure to use textual evidence and details from the reading selections Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and the selected poetry, but also feel free to include discussion from other things you have read on your own.

LITERARY DEVICES & ELEMENTSMost of these definitions have been taken from shmoop.com. It is a great resource for literary terms and examples

of said terms. If you need more information, please visit www.shmoop.com/literature-glossary.

ALLITERATION: a term used to describe the repetition of initial consonant sounds. More simply put, alliteration is what happens when words that begin with the same consonant (the letters that aren't vowels) get all smushed together to great effect. As in, "Carol constantly craves cornflakes." As you may have guessed, you'll find alliteration in many a tongue twister, but it's also just about everywhere in literature, too.

ALLUSION: An allusion is, plain and simple, a reference. You'll find allusions when the book you're reading makes a reference to something outside of itself, whether another work of literature, something from pop culture, a song, myth, history, or even the visual arts.

Why use allusions? Because they connect literature to other pieces of literature (or art or music or history or whatever). Allusions deepen and enrich a work's meaning, and are a form of intertextuality, so they help books talk to each other.

Examples? William Shakespeare is the king of being alluded to and referenced in literature. The title of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is an allusion to a line from Macbeth, and when we read Faulkner, if we keep Macbeth in mind, Faulkner's meaning just might be enhanced.

ASSONANCE: Assonance is a kind of internal rhyme that makes use of repeated vowel sounds . The vowel sounds are woven together to create a cool sonic effect. It's a trick of the trade that poets use to create and enhance meaning.

BALLAD: A ballad is a song. Think boy bands and chest-thumping emotion. Maybe a few tears. But in poetry, a ballad is also an ancient form of storytelling. In the way back days, common people didn't get their stories from books—they were sung as musical poems. Because they are meant to convey information, ballads usually have a simple rhythm and a consistent rhyme scheme. They often tell the story of everyday heroes, and some poets, like Bob Dylan, continue to set them to music.Many (though not all) ballads are written in a little something we like to call ballad meter (creative, right?), which consists of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter (8) and iambic trimester (6).

That means they sound a little something like this: daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM / daDUM daDUM daDUM.If that sounds eerily familiar, well, it should. This meter is a classic, an old stand-by, and tons of poems, ballads, hymns, and other songs were written in it—songs like "Amazing Grace" or "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." In fact, you can sing ballad poems to the tune of these songs, if you really wanted to.

BLANK VERSE: Thanks to a lot of very old, very famous white guys, blank verse is one of the most common forms of English poetry. Oh, and we should say—it's anything but blank. The term refers to verse that has no rhyme scheme, but does have a regular meter— iambic pentameter , to be exact. Why is blank verse so common in English? Well, a lot of people think we speak in blank verse in our everyday conversations. Kind of like we just did: "a lot of people think we speak in it." That could be a blank verse line. This verse was common in Renaissance dramas by folks like Shakespeare and his frenemy Christopher Marlowe, both of whom made the verse accomplish all kinds of amazing fancy feats. But it's used all over poetry, perhaps most famously in Milton's Paradise Lost. Traditionally, blank verse is used when the writer is tackling serious subjects, and you don't get much more serious than Satan.

CONSONANCE: A kind of alliteration , consonance happens when consonant sounds are repeated . While the consonants stay the same, the vowels can change. Stella levels the laughter with an alarming leer. Hear all those L sounds? That's consonance. Are you able to abide by our bubbly babbling?

COUPLET: These cute little buggers are tiny stanzas . So tiny, in fact, that they only include two lines. Sometimes they rhyme, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're written in meter (as in heroic couplets), sometimes they're not. Bottom line? If you see a stanza that's two lines long, it's a couplet.

DICTION: Generally speaking, diction is just word choice. Which words is the author using, and what's their effect?Should you call your crush "sweetie," "dearest," "darling," "beloved," "boo," "sugar pie," or "Hey, you"? It makes a difference. Trust us. See, diction creates tone , and tone is one of the most important aspects up for discussion in literature . So when your teacher asks, what's the tone of this novel? Just ask yourself: what words are being used?

EPIC: Ah, the epic. The most exalted, fancy pants of all genres, the epic is a kind of narrative poem that dates back to ancient Greece and the classical period . Homer and other likeminded bros used the epic to tell stories about larger-than-life heroes and their triumphs on and off the battlefield. Epics usually involve supernatural or mythic elements like gods who like to meddle in human affairs. They are written in an elevated style and use lots of long similes, called heroic similes .

Other conventions include an invocation to the muses and starting in medias res, a Greek phrase that means "in the middle of the action. Homer wrote two main epics: the Iliad and the Odyssey. After him, Virgil, a Roman guy—ahem, the Roman guy—wrote the Aeneid. Check out our analysis of epic in the Odyssey for some ideas on how to spot one. Later epics include Milton's Paradise Lost, and, if you want to play fast and loose with the definition, Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself."

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: This is just a fancy term for words that mean more than meets the eye . Figurative language uses figures of speech like similes and metaphors to build meaning beyond the literal. Think of figurative language as words that have more than one level of meaning. We often use figurative language in our everyday speech without even realizing it. When we say "it's raining cats and dogs," we don't literally mean that felines and canines are falling from the sky. It's a metaphor for a major downpour. Here are a few other examples:

She runs like the wind. I smell a rat. America is a melting pot. How could she marry a snake like that? My head is spinning. My love is a red, red rose. This classroom is like a circus.

Get the picture? Hey, that's one, too.

FREE VERSE: Free verse is a poetic style that lacks a regular meter or rhyme scheme. This may sound like free verse has no style at all, but it totally does. We're talking serious swagger. Free verse poets just use different tools (like internal rhyme or a particular rhythm) to create that style. Walt Whitman was one of the pioneers of free verse, and it has become super popular among contemporary poets like Li-Young Lee and Adrienne Rich.

HAIKU: We have the Japanese to thank for this poetic form. While it has its own rules in Japanese, in English, a haiku has three lines with five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables respectively. These guys often describe natural imagery and include a word that reveals the season in which the poem is set. Aside from its three sections, the haiku also traditionally features a sharp contrast between two ideas or images.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER: Here it is, folks. Probably the single most useful technical term in poetry (and in drama, too). Or maybe metaphor. But you already knew that one.

Let's break it down: An iamb is a metrical foot that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one—daDUM. Penta- means five. Meter refers to a regular rhythmic pattern in poetry. So iambic pentameter is a kind of rhythmic pattern that consists of five iambs per line, almost like five heartbeats: daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM.

Of course, though many poets use this rhythm, it might get pretty stinkin' boring after a while if they didn't shake it up a bit. So while a ton of poems are written in iambic pentameter, you'd be hard pressed to find one that follows the meter perfectly. Poets like to mix it up with metrical variations like extra syllables or out-of-order stresses.

IMAGERY: Imagery is all of the pictures and sensations a piece of writing conjures up in your noggin. Imagery is the key to literature—especially poetry. If you're reading a description that engages any one of your five senses, you're reading imagery, kids.

LYRIC: Lyrics can be the words to a song, sure, but the word lyric can also refer to a kind of poetry. Lyric poetry is all about giving us a glimpse inside the speaker's head. That means lyric poetry is usually written from the first-person point of view (using the pronoun "I") in order to directly convey the speaker's thoughts and emotions. Wait, so why in the world are they called lyrics? Can't they get their own term? Well lyric poems were originally sung, and when those old Greeks (we see you, Sappho) would sing their poems, they'd do so with accompaniment from a lyre. Lyre… lyric. Makes sense, right?Lyric poetry includes lots of subgenres like the ode and the sonnet .

METAPHOR: Anyone who's ever sat in an English classroom knows that metaphors are everywhere, and all-important. Where would literary history be without lines like "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"? Or the declaration that "all the world's a stage"? Or the rhetorical conundrum of "Who in the rainbow can show the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?" Metaphor, it's safe to say, is the bread and butter of literature. But, um, have you ever really thought about what a metaphor is? And, more importantly, how metaphors work?

A metaphor is a kind of word magic that—presto change-o, alakazam—changes black hats into rabbits and scarves into doves. With a wave of the wand, metaphors compare two different things; metaphors describe one object as another . It's almost as if the object becomes what it is being compared to, at least, in a figurative way.

"You're a toad!" is a metaphor—although not a very nice one. So is "you're a star!" and that one's a little kinder. Metaphors are different from similes because metaphors leave out the words "like" or "as."

For example, a simile would be, "You're like a toad" or "You're like a star." (Although, technically speaking, similes are a type of metaphor.)

Technically speaking, similes are metaphors, too, they just use "like" or "as." Personification is a kind of metaphor that compares something to people. And then there are the fancy pants metaphors like metonymy and synecdoche. Memorizing your metaphors can go a long way in opening up literature for you.

METER: Think of meter as a poem's underlying structure—the rhythm beneath the words in each line. Does the poem go daDUM daDUM daDUM? Does it go dadaDUM? How about daDUMda daDUMda? Answer that question and you've got the poem's meter. Of course describing a poem in daDUMs can only get you so far. At some point you're going to run out of noises and need some vocabulary – but we’ll worry about all the formal stuff later. For now, know this: Good writing is about much more than the words on the page; it's about how they sound, and how that sound contributes to meaning. So understanding meter can be yet one more tool in your reading arsenal.

MOOD: the general atmosphere created by the author’s words. It is the feeling the reader gets from reading those words. It may be the same, or it may change from situation to situation. Don’t confuse this with tone, because, as we’ll learn, they are two very different things.

MOTIF: A motif is a meaningful pattern in art and literature. When you see an image, type of character, or symbol pop up again and again, chances are you're dealing with a motif. A motif can be specific to a single book or poem or can occur in art more generally, like an apple standing in for original sin. Yeah. Real original.

MYTH: Myths are the stories a culture tells to explain big things like the origins of the universe, why the sky is blue, and where socks go when we lose them in the dryer. A myth more than likely involves gods or supernatural elements (we're blaming you, Loki, for the socks thing). These days, the word "myth" has become synonymous with "lie"—it's bogus (i.e. "Midlife crisis is a myth!"). But way back when, it had a much deeper, much cooler meaning. A myth was a sacred story, an important part of religion, and helped humans understand how they fit into the world. It's pretty cool stuff.

NARRATOR: The narrator is the one who tells the story—kind of like a guide leading you through a novel or short story. A narrator can have a limited point-of-view, as with first-person narrators, or they can have total omniscience. Narrators can be unreliable or trustworthy. They can be close to the action or as far away as possible. It all depends. In many ways, narrators (even third-person ones) become characters in their own right.

ODE: An ode is a type of lyric poetry that sings the praises of the poem's subject . In ancient times, the ode was usually performed at a ceremonial occasion, with music. More recently, one of the most glorious symphonic movements of all time, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from his Ninth Symphony, is a musical setting of an ode. It's a serious and ceremonial form, the kind that might have been sung after a big banquet. Most modern odes still have a very formal, traditional sound. Many of them are poems of praise, or general appreciation.

Nowadays, we often use the phrase "ode to" as an indication of formal praise. As in, "His speech was an ode to his favorite sports team." The Romantics made a big deal out of writing odes and John Keats was the master. He wrote odes to all kinds of things—nightingales, Grecian urns, even melancholy.

Some odes follow the formal rules set by the two most famous Greek writers of odes, Horace and Pindar. These poems are called—surprise, surprise—Horatian and Pindaric, respectively. But other odes, like Keats's, follow a form and meter all their own.

PERSONIFICATION: This classic is pretty common in writing – it is figurative language that gives human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas).

REFRAIN: Just like in songs, a refrain in poetry is a regularly recurring phrase or verse, especially at the end of each stanza or division of a poem or song.

RHYME: Simple, right? A rhyme is just a repetition of sounds that sound, well, the same. Well, it's simple and it isn't. Strictly speaking, that definition is correct, but did you know there's also a whole bunch of different types of rhyme? Seriously, take a look:

Internal rhyme occurs within a line of poetry. End rhyme occurs only at the ends of lines. Go figure. Perfect rhyme sounds just like what it means. A perfect rhyme rhymes perfectly, as in cat and hat. Slant rhyme consists of rhymes that are close, but not quite there. Think dear and door or soul and all. Also known as half

rhyme, imperfect rhyme, or weak rhyme. Hey! Who you callin' weak? Eye rhymes look alike, but don't sound alike, like tough and bough or mint and pint.

When end rhymes are arranged in a certain way in a poem, we call that the poem's rhyme scheme. Does it go ABABABCC? How about AABBCCDD? (Rhyme Scheme – for more on this term, visit www.shmoop.com/literature-glossary)

SIMILE: A simile is a figure of speech that makes use of the adverbs "like" or "as" to make a comparison or analogy . In that sense, it's a very specific kind of metaphor, but for the most part, we can think of it as its own separate beast.

Speaker – see Narrator

STANZA: Think of these guys as poetic paragraphs. A stanza is a division within a poem where a group of lines are formed into a unit. The word stanza comes from the Italian word for "room." Just like a room, a poetic stanza is set apart on a page by four "walls" of blank, white space.A poem can have regular stanzas, such as Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," which is made up entirely of quatrains. Or it can have stanzas of all shapes and sizes, like those you might see in a free verse poem like Langston Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers."

THEME: A theme is a central idea in a work of literature. It's everywhere (cue creepy music), but it's never explicitly stated. For example, you might say, "This book is about death," but the author probably wouldn't—at least not in the book itself. So death is a theme. Themes help us reflect on big, hulking, abstract ideas like love, youth, progress, and religion. Once we've got the themes under our belt, it's time to figure out what the author is saying about that theme. The theme is the abstract idea, but the author probably has an opinion on it, right? And all the other aspects of a book—from the characters to the style to the plot—can help us pinpoint just what that opinion is.

TONE: Our voices can be playful, dour, cynical, or optimistic. The same thing goes for authors, and that's where tone comes in. Tone is an author's attitude—the emotions and feelings conveyed by the work of literature. But don't confuse tone with style. Tone refers to attitude, while style refers to the techniques the author uses in writing. One book can be optimistic in tone and another pessimistic, but they could both be written in a stream-of-consciousness style. Or one book may be written in a sparse style and another in a rich, lush style, but they both could be nostalgic in tone. How do writers create tone? With diction . When trying to figure out the tone of a text, just ask yourself what kind of words the author is using, and that's your answer.