Programa Literatura Inglesa
Programa Literatura Inglesa
Programa Literatura Inglesa
Dyaláh Calderón de la O
Viceministra Académica de Educación
Comisión redactora
PRESENTATION…………………………………………………………………………………………….7
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 8
LITERATURE AS A TOOL FOR PROMOTING AESTHETICAL, CITIZENSHIP, AND ETHICAL
PRINCIPLES ................................................................................................................................. 9
IMPLICATIONS OF THE EDUCATIONAL POLICY IN THE LEARNING AND TEACHING LITERATURE
IN ENGLISH ............................................................................................................................... 10
THE PURPOSE OF TEACHING LITERATURE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ......................................... 11
METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH ............................................................................................. 12
Learning Strategies.............................................................................................................. 15
PEDAGOGICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE MEDIATION OF LEARNING IN THE LITERATURE CLASS 16
Listening ............................................................................................................................... 16
Speaking .............................................................................................................................. 17
Reading ............................................................................................................................... 17
Writing .................................................................................................................................. 17
CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING ........................................................................................ 18
LEARNING STYLES ..................................................................................................................... 19
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES ......................................................................................................... 20
GENERAL CURRICULAR CONTENTS.......................................................................................... 21
CURRICULAR CONTENTS BY GRADE LEVEL.............................................................................. 24
Third Cycle ........................................................................................................................... 24
Diversified Education .......................................................................................................... 30
PRINCIPLES FOR ASSESSING LITERATURE ................................................................................. 34
Evaluation Components ..................................................................................................... 35
Activities and Assignments Suggested .............................................................................. 35
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 37
ANNEXES .................................................................................................................................. 39
Annex 1-Cross-Curricular Themes ...................................................................................... 39
Human Rights for Democracy and Peace....................................................................... 39
Education for Health ........................................................................................................... 39
It is my pleasure to present this new Literature Program for our Bilingual High
Schools. As we have said many times, learning another language – English in this
case – is important for many different reasons. Usually, it is considered as an
increasingly important competence or skill for living in today´s world, where
communication with persons of other countries is more and more frequent;
where many jobs require the ability to communicate in English, to read and write
in English; where most of the information available in the Internet and in many
specialized journals tends to be in English. So, without question, our students and
our country require a bilingual or multilingual education.
However, learning another language is useful not only in this specific and very
important way. Learning another language opens up a wonderful window,
opens the access not just to “useful information” that otherwise could not be
available, but access to another culture, to another world, to a different way of
thinking, of understanding, of feeling.
They will enjoy, they will understand... and, hopefully, they will be able to express
artistically in English, being thus capable of adequately communicating their
thoughts and emotions and life.
As it is explained later, this literature program intends to achieve four main goals:
Leonardo Garnier
Paulo Freire
INTRODUCTION
education should serve to educate citizens to love the native land, aware
of their duties, their rights and fundamental freedom, with profound sense
of responsibility and respect to human equity; to contribute to the full
development of the human personality, educate citizens for a democracy
where the interests of the individuals can be conciliated with those of the
community and to encourage the development of partnership and
human comprehension.
Consequent with this philosophical reference, and the principles stated in: the
National Constitution, the Educational Policy "Towards the 21st Century", and the
guidelines pertaining to the document El Centro Educativo de Calidad como Eje
de la Educacion Costarricense, the present program course has been written.
The new literature program will be taught in the bilingual high schools within the
framework of the communicative approach. Emphasis will be placed on
communicating thoughts, emotions, and comprehension—all evoked by the
literature component—and to establish connections to the student’s prior
knowledge and life experiences.
This program will prepare the students to face challenging situations which require
the application of their command of the English language, perspectives gained,
not only through the literary experience but through the development of English
communication skills, articulated with higher thinking skills, as well as life-long skills,
such as the cross-curricular themes. (see annex 1, pp. 36-37)
Humanism: It searches for the full realization of the human being, as a person,
endowed with dignity and values, capable to procure his/her perfection by
means of appropriation of values and ideals of the Costa Rican education. It
allows the learner to cultivate aesthetical, citizenship, and ethical values and
attitudes to benefit him/her, society, and the environment.
Rationalism: It recognizes that the human being is endowed with the capacity to
capture reality objectively, in all its forms; to construct and to constantly refine
learning; and to make the progress of humanity possible.
Because of all the benefits that reading literature can provide into the curriculum
of Liceos Experimentales Bilingües, reading literature can increase the chances of
students becoming passionate readers, who read with a purposeful objective, as
well as enjoyment. Additionally, students can improve other skills through
literature. As an illustration, creativity and reflection can be reinforced as
students perform, write, and analyze different literary texts. Perhaps, this is the
ultimate reason that students have for writing with joy and pleasure; that is, their
education will be going beyond the reading.
METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH
Method
Approach
(Theory) Design
Procedure
(Techniques,
practices and
behaviors)
A design is what links theory (approach) and practice (procedure). It is the level
of method analysis in which six elements can be considered:
In the Literature class, teachers may develop their own teaching procedures, in
the mediation activities, on the basis of the learners’ pre- and post-assessments,
as well as performance and reaction to instructional practices, circumstances
and interests of each class community. The use of a rich variety of techniques
and activities, in the class will lead the students to establish positive cross
curricular connections with suggested and flexible literature contents and within
a socio-constructivist curricular approach. Consequently, visualizing, planning,
and implementing techniques relevant to student-need and selecting coherent
activities with the method, and in harmony with the approach, is the teacher’s
job.
The Communicative Approach provides the basis for the eclectic method used
in the literature classroom, which considers seven main features:
Learning Strategies
Most people favor one or several ways to perceive and process new information
over others. Learning strategies enhance the learning process and must be
considered when planning lessons, in order to help students weave the
language skills together.
These techniques are tools students use when they have to solve a problem,
accomplish a task, meet an objective, or attain a goal. Therefore, teachers
should be aware of their students’ learning style and be prepared to teach
students how to employ this learning style.
Rebecca Oxford (2001) views the four main set of skills: listening, reading,
speaking and writing as overlapping areas of competence. When the emphasis
is on learning a language for authentic communication, they are interwoven
with each other during instruction. In this way, she highlights, learners “have the
benefit of practicing all the language skills in an integrated, natural,
communicative way, even if one skill is the main focus of a given volume.”
Listening
Teachers will enable learners to present ideas to individual peers, groups, and
the entire class. They will learn to speak about a subject of their choosing or on
teacher-assigned topics. Preparing for debates and participating in them will
help students to become aware of various sides and issues. Also, students will
benefit from interviewing others and from participating in multiple forms of
spoken communication.
Reading
Students will read a variety of texts such as short stories, folktales, poems, essays,
and others. It is in this subject that learners will begin to see how the language is
formed and utilized for expression.
Writing
To become better writers, students will need to read influential literature that can
serve as a model and stimulus for their own efforts. Getting in touch with the lives
of great male and female writers, as well as their literature, and how they
developed their talents, will stimulate students. Also, direct contact with
These four fundamentals go hand-in-hand and are inextricably linked. They are
primarily developed in the Listening/Speaking (Oral) and Reading/Writing
(Composition) subjects of Liceos Experimentales Bilingües. Consequently, the
Literature teacher is expected to coordinate with the Language Arts teachers,
during the pre-, during-, and post-planning.
Critical thinking and reading are necessities for one to acquire an education,
and, once gained, a life-long learner is established. The structures people
develop as they learn to read, and read to learn, influence all subsequent
knowledge. Thinking readers, sometimes called critical readers, evaluate new
information in light of what they already know, compare many sources instead
of accepting only one point of view, and make judgments about what they
read. Critical readers can distinguish facts from opinions—a mandatory aspect
of the class.
In high school, personal and social concerns become dominant in search for
information. Zúñiga (2005) states that reading comprehension in secondary
schools usually entails teaching the central idea of a paragraph of a text and
the construction of literal meanings for the text in an effort to obtain accurate
recall and understanding, but not to relate experience to the text they read.
Texts should help the identification and solution of relevant problems from the
concrete world. Hoffman, Bauman and Afflerback (2000) claim that knowledge
is not just accumulation of facts; it involves beliefs and values. Therefore,
teachers should look for outstanding texts that challenge students to think and
act critically, as well as seek out texts that simultaneously provide entertainment.
The first principle underlying critical thinking is that readers draw on background
experiences to compose a text, engaging in an ongoing negotiation to arrive at
The second principle is the acceptance of active learning. Freire contends that
those who share in the learning process are empowered by critical
consciousness of themselves as meaning makers. It is language that provides
the tool for meaning construction. Language is a thinking process which allows
students to learn and grow. In professional literature, teaching students to think
while reading is referred to as “critical reading.” It is defined as “learning to
evaluate, draw inferences, and arrive at conclusions based on evidence.”
Critical reading has two concepts: one, critical reading is a technique for
discovering information and ideas within a text; and two, critical thinking is a
technique for evaluating and filtering information and ideas.
LEARNING STYLES
When deciding on how relevant the curriculum is, the learning styles are as
important as the development of skills or learning strategies. Learning styles are
presented as possibilities to be included when planning learning activities to
guarantee success in the formative process.
Gregorc defines learning style as the outward expression to the human mind’s
ability to mediate knowledge; that is, the means and capacities human beings
employ to receive and express information.
Two principal factors in determining learning styles are the ways in which
information is perceived and how it is ordered in our brains.
Recently, two other types of intelligence have been named: the naturalist and
the spiritual. The addition of these two intelligences gives classroom teachers the
possibility to incorporate more experiences to reach and help more students
develop wholly. These additions to Gardner’s theory are a concrete reminder
that teachers must always seek new information and teaching strategies
applicable to improving the teaching and learning process.
The teaching process for the program of Literature in English Language sums up
the previous pillars into three curricular content goals:
Learning to know: how to get knowledge, how to live with dignity and
contributing to society (methods and pleasure to know, to comprehend,
and to discover), to concentrate, to analyze, to explore, use reflective
and critical thinking, and to evaluate.
Third Cycle
Symbols have been used to focus term-content that is new or has been recycled
(new */ recycled +).
Note: The content in each term of each grade is flexible and should be adapted
according to each class and each individual student.
Note: Not all the performance indicators stated above are measurable. Some of
them are observable behaviors, but they are as equally important.
Note: The content in each term of each grade is flexible and should be adapted
according to each class and each individual student.
Note: Not all the performance indicators stated above are measurable. Some of
them are observable behaviors, but they are as equally important.
Note: The content in each term of each grade is flexible and should be adapted
according to each class and each individual student.
Note: Not all the performance indicators stated above are measurable. Some of
them are observable behaviors, but they are as equally important.
Symbols have been used to focus term-content that is new or has been recycled
(new */ recycled +).
Note: The content in each term of each grade is flexible and should be adapted
according to each class and each individual student.
Note: Not all the performance indicators stated above are measurable. Some of
them are observable behaviors, but they are as equally important.
Note: The content in each term of each grade is flexible and should be adapted
according to each class and each individual student.
Note: Not all the performance indicators stated above are measurable. Some of
them are observable behaviors, but they are as equally important.
When assessing literature, teachers should keep in mind that assessment should
As students read literature, they should have a clear idea what they need to
know, how to select important information, how to relate it to prior knowledge,
retain what they consider essential, and apply the information to their context.
Students should be taught to reflect on what they have learned and relate it to
their original learning goals.
Self and co-assessment will be developed within the literature course as a tool to
empower students with skills to reflect on their learning process. According to
O’Malley and Valdez (1996, p. 38), “effective assessment involves students and
enables them to see possibilities for reflection, redirection, and confirmation of
their own learning efforts.”
The mediation activities in the Literature class will respond to the social-cultural
construct of individual and collective knowledge of the students within the class
community. As a result, the assessment process is weighted on the formative
evaluation and teachers will construct and implement a variety of assessment
instruments (portfolios, rubrics, checklists, and others), for co and self evaluation,
to record student’s performance. (See annex 4, pp.50-51)
Criteria Percentage
Daily work 45%
Assignments 20%
For lower levels, learners will be able to participate in individual or collective in-
class tasks, as well as to develop short assignments in each term, such as:
_ Portfolios reflections
_ Journal writing /Reflections on readings
_ Choral speak poetry
_ Creating mobiles of characters and their traits
_ Creating dioramas
_ Making timelines of story event, one character and/ or historical events that
took place during the setting of the reading
_ Dramatizing a scene from the reading
_ Designing a movie poster – if the reading is made into a movie, what would
the advertisement look like
_ Illustrating a scene from the reading
_ Designing a book cover
_ Creating an advertisement and/or commercial to sell the reading
_ Writing songs or chants about a scene in the reading
_ Developing games based on the reading, i.e. trivia
_ Panel discussions with the characters of the book so students can ask
questions about how/why
_ Making a human barometer to express students’ opinions about moral issues
that evolved from the reading
For higher levels, learners will be able to develop assignments as continuous task-
based projects. For example a book report, beginning in Term I, students will
choose a project theme and start working on that project. By the end of Term I,
students will have finished one-third of a larger, culminating project.
In Term II, students will create and finish the next assignment; so, by the end of
Term II, students will have completed two-thirds of their culminating project.
In Term III, students will create and complete the final one-third of the
culminating project.
The projects from Term I, Term II, and Term III will combine to create one large,
culminating project. The idea is to allow students the opportunities to monitor
their educational progress and to revise each project accordingly.
Each project third must be completed by the end of each term. However,
during the proceeding term (or in between terms for the ambitious students),
students can modify their project according to reflection and new knowledge
attainment. This way, rather than a start-and-stop approach (i.e., starting Term I,
ending Term I, then starting Term II, etc.), students’ learning is continuous and
connected.
Brown, H. Douglas. (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Prentice Hall
Regents. USA.
Bryan, S.L. & Sprague, M. M. Educating the Spirit for Beauty. Classroom Leadership.
(vol.2, no. 4, December 1998/January 1999). Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development.
Carr, K.S. (1988). How can we teach critical thinking? Child Education. [EJ 382 605].
Chamot, A.U., & O’Malley, M. (1994). The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the
Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach. United States of America:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Chamot, A.U., et al. (1999). The Learning Strategies Handbook. United States of
America: Addison-Wesley Longman, Inc.
Cullinan, B.E. (1981). Literature and the Child. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc.
Gosh, I. (2002). Four good reasons to use literature in primary school ELT. ELT Journal,
56, (2) 172-179.
Miller, J. R., James, E., Hayden, Robert, O’Neal, Robert (1974). The Lyric Potential.
Illinois: Scott, Foresman, and Company. U.S.A.
Ministerio de Educación Pública. (1994). Política Educativa Hacia el Siglo XXI. San
Ministerio de Educación Pública. (2009). Programa de Estudios Educación Musical. pp. 8. San
José: Imprenta Nacional.
O’Malley, J.M. & Valdez, L. (1996). Authentic Assessment for English Language
Learners: Practical Approaches for Teachers. United States of America: Addison–Wesley
Publishing Company.
Oxford, Rebecca. (2001). Integrated Skills in the ESL/EFL Classroom. Forum English Teaching.
January/February 2001, pp.18-20.
Pearson AGS Globe. (2008). Language Arts and Literature, Course 1. Minnesota:
Pearson, Inc.
Pearson AGS Globe. (2008). Language Arts and Literature, Course 2. Minnesota:
Pearson, Inc.
Pearson Prentice Hall. (Penguin Ed.) Readers Notebook. Literature. English Learner’s
Version. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education, Inc.
Tierney, R.J. and Pearson, P.D. (1983). Toward a Composing Model of Reading.
Language Arts, 60(5), 568-80. [EJ 280 830].
Zuñiga, C. G. (2005). Meaningful Reading. (1993). What effective teachers should do in the
English classroom. Colombia. Universidad Surcolombiana.
Cross-curricular themes have been linked closely with the formation for life,
acquiring particular value and strength to reach a balance between an
education that prepares the students for productivity and employment, along
with growth on social and personal values.
During the elementary school years, students go through different stages which
produce physical, psychosocial and cognitive changes. All these phenomena
submit the students to social pressure that cause them a series of heath
problems that affect their school life.
Education of human sexuality begins from the first childhood and lasts along
one’s life. First, it is a right and a duty of parents. The educational system, as a
socializing and humanizing space, requires that its educational institutions
promote development and learning to attend and to complete the education
given by parents. It is the Nation’s responsibility to subsidize and encourage
parents to take action in the field of the education and the information stated in
the Childhood and Adolescence Code.
Metacognitive Strategies
Strategy Name Strategy Description Strategy Definition
Planning Preview Previewing the main ideas and concepts of a
Skim text; identifying the organizing principle.
Gist
Organizational Planning Plan what to do Planning how to accomplish the learning
task; planning the parts and sequence of
ideas to express.
Selective Attention Listen or read selectively Attending to key words, phrases, ideas,
Scan linguistic markers, types of information.
Find specific information
Self-management Plan when, where, and Seeking or arranging the conditions that help
how to study one learn.
Monitoring
Monitoring Think while listening Checking one’s comprehension during
Comprehension Think while reading listening or reading.
Monitoring Production Think while speaking Checking one’s oral or written production
Think while writing while it is taking place.
Evaluating
Self-assessment Check back Judging how well one has accomplished a
Keep learning log learning task.
Reflect on what you
learned
Cognitive Strategies
Strategy Name Strategy Description Strategy Definition
Resourcing Use reference materials Using reference materials such as
dictionaries, encyclopedias, or textbooks.
Grouping Classify Classifying words, terminology, quantities, or
Construct graphic concepts according to their attributes.
organizers
Note-taking Take notes on main Writing down key words and concepts in
maps, T-lists, etc. abbreviated verbal, graphic, or numerical
form.
Elaboration of Prior Use what you know Relating new to known information and
Knowledge Use background making personal associations.
knowledge
Make analogies
Summarizing Say or write the main Making mental, oral, or written summary of
idea information gained from listening or reading.
Deduction/Induction Use a rule/Make a rule Applying or figuring out rules to understand a
concept or complete a learning task.
Imagery Visualize Using mental or real pictures to learn new
Make a picture information or solve a problem
Auditory Use your mental tape Replaying mentally a word, phrase, or piece
Representation recorder of information.
Advance Organization Can the title and chapter headings help me get a general idea of
what this story is about?
Selective Attention What are the most important parts of the story to pay attention to?
Organizational Planning What’s my purpose for reading, listening, speaking or writing? How
should I organize my story, book report, or presentation? How do I begin and end? What’s
the best sequence of ideas or events? How can I describe and present the characters?
Self-assessment Did I understand this story or poem? What was the main point I got from
reading or listening? How do I feel about the story and characters? What revisions are
necessary in my writing? Do I need more information? Should I re-read?
Cognitive Strategies: Students interact with literature and composition experiences, relating
it to what they know and personalizing or organizing the material to understand and
appreciate it.
Elaborating Prior Knowledge What do I already know about this type of literature or
writing? What experiences have I had that are related to this? How does this information
relate to other things I know about literature or writing?
Taking notes What’s the best way to write down what I need to remember? Outline?
Chart? List? Diagram? Story map? Drawing?
Grouping How can I classify the characters or events in this story? Can I organize this
information graphically?
Summarizing What’s the most important information to remember about this story? Should
my summary be oral, written, or mental?
Using Imagery What can I learn from illustrations, diagrams, and pictures in the text?
Can I draw something to help me understand this story? Can I make a mental picture or
visualize this event or place or character?
Linguistic Transfer Are there any words, prefixes, or suffixes that I recognize because of their
similarity to my native language?
Social/Affective Strategies: Students interact with peers, teachers, and other adults to assist
learning, or use attitudes or feelings to assist learning.
Questioning for Clarification Who should I ask for additional explanation or correction or
suggestions? How should I ask?
Cooperating How can I work with friends or classmates to understand this or complete this
task or improve what I have written or presented orally?
By Partap Sharna
The magpie and the squirrel lived on the lower slopes of the Himalayas. One cold
and snowy winter, the magpie borrowed some nuts from the squirrel, and the squirrel
borrowed some feathers to warm his hole in the tree.
In summer, the magpie brought some nuts to return the loan, but the squirrel said,
“It’s summer and I have plenty of nuts now. You took them from me in winter, so return
them to in winter.”
The magpie wondered what he would do because he knew there would be no
nuts to be found in winter. So when the squirrel came to return the loan of feathers, he
said, “I have plenty of feathers in my nest now. You took them from me in winter.”
“Very well,” said the squirrel, and he stored the feathers along with his horde nuts.
But it was so hot summer, and the squirrel’s house felt like furnace with all those
feathers in it. So he threw the feathers out, thinking he’d pick them up when winter came
around and it was time to return the loan.
In winter, there was ice and snow everywhere the feathers were buried
underneath. Try as he might, the squirrel could not dig them out.
He said to the magpie, “I’m afraid I can’t find feathers in winter.”
“Nor can I find nuts at this time,” said the magpie.
And the squirrel remembered his loan and his words to the magpie, and he was
ashamed. He said, “I should expect you to return the nuts when you can, not when you
cannot. A loan is meant to help a friend, not to give him trouble.”
From them on they helped each other in winter and repaid their debts in summer.
They continued to live happily and became even better friends thereafter.
Vocabulary
Magpie: a black and white bird, known for its chatter, with a long
tail and short wings.
Horde: a large group or amount of something.
Repay: to pay back or make some return for.
Debt: something owed by one person to another.
Pre-reading Activities
Invent-a-Friend
B- Pair/share: Compare your ideas in your chart /poster with those of a classmate.
C- In groups: Use the box below to create a plan for a chart or poster. It should
display your ideas about what an ideal friend is. You might want to include
illustrations as well as words in your plan.
Remember
A Haiku poem is a very short poem with an easily memorable form
consisting of three non-rhyming lines containing 17 syllables, usually
in groups of five, seven, and five.
Friendship
__________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Individually, in the oval below, write the name of someone, either real or imaginary,
whom you think would be a good friend. Then, create a web by writing nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and adverbs describing the friend’s importance in your life. Draw a circle
around each term and connect it to the center oval.
Cause and Effect A cause sets into motion an action or a series of actions. An effect
is an event or a situation that happens as a result.
CAUSES EFFECTS
A- Look at your classmates. Find a classmate you don’t know well. Why didn’t you
consider him/her a friend? Go and to talk to that person. Try to find his/her likes and
dislikes.
B- In pairs: Now that you know that classmate. Decide on a creative activity for the
class (i.e.: song, poem, phrase, jazz chant, acrostic, etc.).
C- What traits do you find now in this person? Can you find positive characteristics?
Write and send a note to him/her.
Name_________________________________________Group________Date___________
Coherence and
Organization
Material
Speaking Skills
Audience
Response
Length of
Presentation
Comments:___________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Scale Descriptor
Exceptional Demonstrates exceptional use of: vocabulary, coherence and
(4) organization of message, supportive resources, speaking skills
(intonation, pronunciation), getting audience attention and time.
Admirable Demonstrates admirable use of: vocabulary, coherence and
(3) organization of message, supportive resources, speaking skills
(intonation, pronunciation), getting audience attention and time.
Acceptable Demonstrates acceptable use of: vocabulary, coherence and
(2) organization of message, supportive resources, speaking skills
(intonation, pronunciation), getting audience attention and time.
Amateur Demonstrates amateur use of: vocabulary, coherence and
(1) organization of message, supportive resources, speaking skills
(intonation, pronunciation), getting audience attention and time.
Literature in English Language
Source: Gottlieb, Margo, et al., (2006). PreK-12 English Language Proficiency Standards.
Alexandria, Virginia: Teachers of English of Other languages, Inc. (TESOL)
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Literature in English Language
Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS): those thoughts processes that are needed to
solve problems and make necessary decisions in everyday activities, as well as
the mental processes needed to benefit from instruction. Examples of such skills
are observing, summarizing, justifying, developing explanations, and making
inferences (deductive and inductive).
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Literature in English Language
Source: Wheeler, Patricia, Ph.D. and Haertel, Geneva D. Resource Handbook on performance Assessment and
Measurement: A tool for students, Practitioners, and Policymakers. California, U.S.A.
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Concrete Poetry in which the shape of the printed form is related to its
Poetry: subject.
Easter Wings
George Herbert
Night Friends
S.J. Marks
Terror we expect, but we are always surprised by love. –Thomas
Williams
What you taught me
and how I remember it
When I lie in the dark
I write on the cold trees.
I see what you see through the corner of my eyes
Metaphor: An implied comparison between two things.
Nothing signs from these orange trees,
These orange trees”, with the implied comparison to steel frameworks, is a
metaphor.
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Literature in English Language
Ah Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts,
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun;
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
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Free verse Also called OPEN FORM POETRY, free verse refers to poems
charactized by their nonconformity to established patterns of
meter, rhyme, and stanza. Free verse uses elements such as
speech patterns, grammar, emphasis, and breath pauses to
decide line breaks, and usually does not rhyme.
Narrative A poem that tells a story. A narrative poem may be short or
poem long.
Onomatopoeia A term referring to the use of a word that resembles the sound it
denotes. Buzz, rattle, bang, and sizzle all reflect onomatopoeia.
Pun A play on words that relies on a word’s having more than one
meaning or sounding like another word. Shakespeare and
other writers use puns extensively, for serious and comic
purposes; in Rome and Juliet, the dying Mercurio puns, “Ask for
me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.”
Rhyme The repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in
different words, most often at the ends of lines. Rhyme is
predominantly a function of sound rather than spelling; thus,
words that end with the same vowel sounds rhyme, for
instance, day, prey, bouquet, weigh, and words with the same
consonant ending rhyme, for instance vain, feigh, rein, lane.
Stanza In poetry, stanza refers to a grouping of lines.
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Literature in English Language
Elements of Fiction
Character The people (or animals, things, etc. presented as people)
appearing in a literary work.
Types of Characters:
Round Character: convincing. True to life.
Dynamic Character: undergoes some type of change in
story.
Flat Character: stereotyped, shallow, often symbolic.
Static Character: does not change in the course of the
story.
Methods of Characterization
1. Direct: “he was an old man…”
2. Own Words and Actions
3. Reaction of other Characters
4. Physical appearance
5. Own thoughts
Other Fiction Allusion: a reference to a person, place or literary, historical,
Elements artistic, mythological source or event.
“it was in St. Louis, Missouri, where they have that giant
McDonald’s thing towering over the city…” (Bean Trees 15)
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Literature in English Language
Plot The series of events and actions that takes place in a story.
Elements of Plot
Conflict
Man VS Man
Man VS Nature
Man VS Society
Man VS Himself
Plot line
Climax: The turning point. The most intense moment (either
mentally or in action).
Rising Action: the series of conflicts and crisis in the story that lead
to climax.
Falling Action: all of the action which follows the Climax.
Exposition: The start of the story. The way things are before the
action starts.
Resolution: The conclusion, the tying together of all the threads.
Point of View Who is telling the story?
Omniscient Point of View: The author is telling the story.
“The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of
rock and began
and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. Though he had
taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his
grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead.
All around him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath
of heat.”
The Lord of the Flies- William Golding
Limited Omniscient: Third person, told from the viewpoint of a
character in the story.
“In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned
so palely from their waisted cut glass vase. He looked down at
the guttered candles tub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm
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Literature in English Language
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
The shall the fall further the flight in me.
“Flowers so beautiful
But they will die now
When you cut the flowers”
Quatrains Poetry form
A four-line stanza, usually—not always—following a rhyme
scheme (e.g., abab, aabb, abba)
“Today, I did not earn my rest,
for my limbs I did not stretch,
and my mind I did not stress,
but tomorrow, I’ll be refreshed.”
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