Genre A category of literature. The main literary genres are fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.

Special type of autobiography Memoir: Special type of autobiography Consists of recollections of a certain period of time or a special incident in a person’s life.

Autobiography An autobiography is a story about a person’s life and is written by the person who lived it. An autobiography can be about the person’s whole life, part of that person’s life, or a single event.

Biography A biography is a selection about a real person's life that is written by another person.

Case Study This type of nonfiction explains in detail how investigators find answers to hard questions or solutions to hard problems.

Expository Nonfiction Expository nonfiction provides information about real-life persons, objects, or ideas. Expository nonfiction may include graphic sources, such as charts and photos, that show information. A chart is a sheet of information. Facts are arranged in an easy-to-read form.

Fantasy A fantasy is a make-believe story that could never happen in the real world. Some characters and plot situations may be realistic, while others are exaggerated and even silly. The author uses a realistic classroom setting but then introduces fantastic characters who do impossible things.

Fiction Fiction stories are stories that the author has made up. Fiction is an untrue story. Characters and events may be realistic, even though they might be unusual or even unlikely in some way.

Folk Tale The original author is unknown and that folk tales often have different versions. These stories are passed down through generations over many centuries.

Historical Fiction Historical fiction is a combination of imagination and fact, with fictional characters and plot placed in a factual historical setting.

Humorous Fiction Humorous fiction tells the story of imaginary people who seem real. Story events are true-to-life and often funny. Humorous fiction has characters and actions that can make you laugh and wonder how things will turn out.

Interview In an interview the interviewer asks questions. The other person, the subject, answers. Interviews usually appear in magazines or newspapers.

Myth A myth is a tale that has been passed down through generations and tells about nature and human behavior.

Narrative Nonfiction A narrative is writing that tells about events. Narrative nonfiction tells about events that really happened.

Play Like a novel or a short story, a play tells a story but it is written to be acted out for an audience. Plays have many unique literary elements such as acts, scenes, stage directions, and speech tags.

Poetry Poetry is an arrangement of words in lines having rhythm. Sometimes those lines rhyme, as in this narrative poem.

Realistic Fiction Fiction tells stories of imaginary people and events, realistic fiction tells a story that is possible. Plausible characters engage in actions that seem truthful and the story has a reasonable outcome.

Science Fiction Science fiction is a kind of fantasy that uses scientific information to make a story seem more believable to the reader.

Tall Tales Tall tales are amusing stories told with great exaggeration and bigger-than-life characters.