MTEL Middle School Humanities (76) flashcards

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

First-person narrator

A narrator who uses I or we and participates in the story, so readers know only what this narrator observes, thinks, or is told.

Dramatic irony

A literary device in which the audience or reader knows information that a character does not, creating tension or humor as the character acts on incomplete knowledge.

Shakespearean sonnet

A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter rhymed ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, organized as three quatrains and a closing couplet that often states a turn or conclusion.

Metaphor

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

Thesis statement

A sentence that presents an arguable, specific claim controlling an essay; it should be supportable with evidence and usually appears near the introduction's end.

Active voice

A sentence construction in which the grammatical subject performs the action, as in The committee approved the plan, often making prose clearer and more direct.

MLA in-text citation

A parenthetical reference in MLA style that usually gives the author's last name and page number, such as (Morrison 42), directing readers to the Works Cited entry.

Transitional adverb

A word or phrase such as however, therefore, or moreover that signals the logical relationship between sentences or paragraphs, such as contrast, cause, or addition.

Primary source

A document or artifact created during the period being studied by a participant or observer, such as a diary, letter, photograph, law, or contemporaneous newspaper report.

Secondary source

A work that interprets or synthesizes primary evidence after the fact, such as a history textbook, scholarly article, biography, or documentary.

Declaration of Independence

The 1776 statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, declaring the American colonies' independence from Britain and asserting natural rights and consent of the governed.

Reconstruction amendments

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, ratified 1865-1870, which abolished slavery, guaranteed citizenship and equal protection, and protected voting rights by race.

Emancipation Proclamation

An executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 and effective January 1, 1863, declaring enslaved people in Confederate states free; it did not apply to border slave states.

Cold War containment

The U.S. policy of limiting Soviet and communist expansion during the Cold War through alliances, economic aid, military force, and proxy conflicts rather than direct superpower war.

BCE chronology

Dating Before the Common Era counts backward toward year zero; therefore 500 BCE is earlier than 200 BCE, and no year zero exists between BCE and CE.

Industrial Revolution

The late-eighteenth-century shift beginning in Britain from hand production to machine manufacturing, factories, steam power, and rail, which accelerated urbanization and economic change.

Latitude

The angular distance north or south of the equator, measured from 0 degrees at the equator to 90 degrees at the poles and shown as horizontal lines on maps.

Contour lines

Map lines connecting points of equal elevation; closely spaced lines indicate steep slopes, widely spaced lines gentle slopes, and hachured contours mark depressions.

Federalism

A system in which power is divided between a national government and state governments, with each level having authority granted or reserved by a constitution.

Separation of powers

The division of government authority among legislative, executive, and judicial branches, each with distinct functions and checks on the others.

First Amendment

The U.S. constitutional amendment protecting freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition, while allowing reasonable time, place, and manner regulations.

GDP

Gross domestic product, the total market value of final goods and services produced within a country in a period, calculated as consumption plus investment plus government spending plus net exports.

Opportunity cost

The value of the next-best alternative given up when a choice is made; scarcity forces individuals, firms, and governments to incur such costs.

Market equilibrium

The price and quantity at which quantity demanded equals quantity supplied; above it a surplus arises, below it a shortage arises, pressuring price toward equilibrium.

Historical contextualization

Placing a source or event in its political, social, economic, and chronological setting to interpret meaning accurately and avoid judging the past only by present standards.

Source corroboration

Comparing multiple independent sources to test reliability and consistency; agreement strengthens a claim, while disagreement requires explaining differences in perspective, purpose, or access.

Author purpose

The reason a source was created, such as to persuade, inform, entertain, record, or justify; identifying it helps explain emphasis, omission, tone, and bias.

Correlation versus causation

Correlation means two variables vary together; causation means one produces the other. A correlation alone does not prove causation because confounding variables may explain it.

Map projection distortion

The unavoidable distortion of shape, area, distance, or direction when representing Earth's curved surface on a flat map; the projection chosen depends on purpose.

Media literacy

The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages by checking a claim's source, evidence, date, purpose, and whether it distinguishes fact from opinion.

Paraphrase citation

A restatement of another source's ideas in your own words; it still requires a citation because the idea, not merely the exact wording, belongs to the source.

Argumentative reasoning

The explanation connecting a claim to evidence, showing why the evidence supports the claim and addressing a counterclaim to strengthen the overall argument.