FAST ELA Grade 7 flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Theme

The central message about life or human nature that a literary work conveys, expressed as a complete sentence rather than a single topic word.

Climax

The turning point of highest tension in a story, where the central conflict shifts and the outcome begins to become inevitable.

Indirect characterization

Revealing a character's traits through speech, thoughts, effect on others, actions, and appearance instead of stating the traits directly.

Dynamic character

A character who undergoes a meaningful change in attitude, understanding, or behavior over the course of the story.

Rhyme scheme

The pattern of end rhymes in a poem, labeled with letters so that lines rhyming with each other share the same letter.

Metaphor

A figure of speech that states one thing is another without using like or as, as in calling a difficult problem a maze.

Third-person omniscient

A point of view in which the narrator stands outside the story and reports the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters.

Mood

The feeling or atmosphere a text creates in the reader, shaped by word choice, imagery, setting, and sentence rhythm.

Central idea

The main point of an entire informational text, stated in a complete sentence and supported by the text's key details.

Objective summary

A brief restatement of a text's central idea and most important supporting details, written in the reader's own words without opinion.

Text structure

The organizational pattern of a text, such as chronological order, cause and effect, comparison, problem and solution, or description.

Claim

A statement an author asks readers to accept, which must then be supported by reasons and relevant evidence throughout the argument.

Relevant evidence

Information that directly supports the claim being made, as opposed to material that is interesting but unrelated to the argument.

Author's purpose

The reason a writer creates a text, commonly to inform, persuade, explain, or entertain, which shapes the content and tone chosen.

Context clue

Surrounding words or sentences that help a reader infer an unfamiliar word's meaning, often through definition, example, contrast, or general sense.

Connotation

The emotional or cultural association a word carries beyond its dictionary meaning, which can make similar words feel positive or negative.

Denotation

The literal, dictionary meaning of a word, separate from any feelings or associations the word may suggest to readers.

Prefix

A word part attached to the beginning of a base word that changes its meaning, such as re- meaning again or pre- meaning before.

Greek and Latin roots

Meaningful word parts from ancient languages, such as bio for life or port for carry, that help readers decode unfamiliar English words.

Idiom

An expression whose meaning cannot be worked out from its individual words, such as break the ice meaning to ease tension.

Comma splice

An error in which two independent clauses are joined by only a comma, fixable with a period, semicolon, or conjunction.

Sentence fragment

A group of words punctuated as a sentence but missing a subject, a verb, or a complete thought.

Pronoun-antecedent agreement

The rule that a pronoun must match its antecedent in number and gender, so a singular antecedent takes a singular pronoun.

Gerund

A verb form ending in -ing that functions as a noun in a sentence, as in swimming in the sentence Swimming is good exercise.

Dangling modifier

A descriptive phrase that has no logical word to modify in the sentence, leaving the description attached to the wrong element.

Complex sentence

A sentence containing one independent clause and at least one dependent clause, joined by a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun.

Active voice

A sentence construction in which the subject performs the action, which usually produces clearer and more direct writing.

Parallel structure

Using the same grammatical form for items in a list or comparison so that the elements balance and read smoothly.

Subordinating conjunction

A word such as because, although, when, or if that turns a clause into a dependent one and signals its relationship to the main clause.

Thesis statement

A single sentence in the introduction that states the essay's main claim and previews the ideas the body paragraphs will develop.

Paraphrase

A restatement of a source's idea in the writer's own words and sentence structure, which still requires a citation to the source.

Plagiarism

Presenting another person's words or ideas as one's own, whether by copying without quotation marks or by failing to credit a source.

Source credibility

The reliability of a source, judged by the author's expertise, the publication date, the publisher, and whether claims are backed by evidence.