MTEL English (61) key terms

Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter, a meter of five unstressed and five stressed syllables per line; common in English drama and epic, including Shakespeare's plays.

A gap between what a character understands and what the audience knows, creating tension or humor; in Oedipus Rex the audience grasps the prophecy before the king does.

A character whose traits contrast with another character's, making the protagonist's qualities more visible; Laertes and Fortinbras serve as foils to Hamlet in Shakespeare's play.

A first-person teller whose account the reader has reason to distrust because of bias, limited knowledge, or self-deception; the technique often creates ambiguity and invites careful rereading.

A recurring image, phrase, or idea that supports a work's themes; in Macbeth, blood and sleep recur across scenes and accumulate symbolic weight.

A brief, unannounced reference to a well-known person, text, event, or myth that assumes shared cultural knowledge; it deepens meaning without pausing to explain.

Fiction that presents supernatural events as ordinary within a realistic setting, often associated with Latin American writing; García Márquez's novels are standard classroom examples.

A narrative technique that renders a character's continuous inner thought, often without logical transitions or conventional punctuation, as in novels by Woolf and Joyce.

A twentieth-century approach that treats a literary text as a self-contained object, emphasizing close reading of imagery, tension, and paradox over author biography or historical context.

Naming something by a closely associated object rather than by the thing itself, as when 'the crown' stands for royal authority or 'the pen' for writing.

The smallest unit of sound that distinguishes meaning in a language, such as the /p/ in pat versus the /b/ in bat.

The smallest meaningful unit of language, either free like 'dog' or bound like the plural '-s'; most English words contain one or more morphemes.

The rules governing how words combine into phrases and sentences, including word order and agreement; English relies heavily on order to signal grammatical roles.

The study of literal meaning in language, including how words and sentences relate to concepts, reference, and truth conditions.

The study of meaning in context, including how speakers use implicature, politeness, and shared assumptions to convey more than their words literally say.

A variety of language chosen for a situation, ranging from formal academic prose to casual conversation; word choice, sentence structure, and tone shift accordingly.

Alternating between two languages or language varieties within a conversation or text, often to signal identity, adjust to an audience, or shift topic.

A word that shares a common origin with a word in another language and often looks or sounds similar, such as English 'nation' and Spanish 'nación'.

Rules that tell speakers how language should be used, often based on prestige usage; contrasted with descriptive grammar, which records how people actually speak.

The history of a word's form and meaning, including its origins and routes of transmission across languages; useful for teaching vocabulary and spelling patterns.

The combination of writer, audience, purpose, context, and message that shapes a text; analyzing it helps students make deliberate choices in their own writing.

The opportune moment for an argument, the timeliness that makes a message persuasive; a claim can be sound yet fail if delivered at the wrong time.

A sentence that states the central claim of an essay and previews its reasoning; it should be arguable, specific, and supportable with evidence from sources or the text.

In Toulmin argument, the assumption that connects a claim to its evidence; often unstated, it must be shared with the audience for the argument to persuade.

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences, as in 'We shall fight on the beaches... we shall fight in the fields'.

A figure in which the order of terms in one clause is reversed in the next, as in 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country'.

An understatement that affirms something by denying its opposite, as in 'not bad' for 'good'; common in formal, ironic, or diplomatic registers.

A group sharing goals, genres, and conventions for communication, such as academic biologists or legal professionals; writing instruction often aims to help students enter one.

A model of composing as repeated cycles of planning, drafting, revising, and editing rather than a single linear sequence; writers loop back as ideas develop.

Awareness and regulation of one's own thinking, such as noticing when a draft's argument is unclear and choosing a strategy to revise it.

The ability to notice and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words, such as blending /c/ /a/ /t/ into 'cat'; it predicts early reading success.

Instruction in the relationships between letters and the sounds they represent, used to help beginning readers decode unfamiliar printed words.

Reading accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with expression; fluent readers recognize words automatically and can focus attention on meaning rather than decoding.

The process by which readers store printed words as connected spelling, pronunciation, and meaning units in memory, enabling instant word recognition.

An organized framework of prior knowledge that readers use to interpret new information; activating relevant schema improves comprehension and memory for text.

Examining oral reading errors to understand the cue systems a reader uses; substitutions and omissions reveal strengths and instructional needs rather than simple mistakes.

Understanding ideas not stated directly in a text by combining textual clues with prior knowledge, such as drawing conclusions, predicting outcomes, or interpreting tone.

Temporary support that a more knowledgeable person provides so a learner can complete a task just beyond independent ability; the support is gradually removed as competence grows.

Teaching the reading, writing, and thinking practices specific to a subject, such as evaluating evidence in history or interpreting data displays in science.

A small-group comprehension routine in which students take turns predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing a text, initially with teacher modeling and support.