IMAGERY Words and phrases create vivid sensory experiences for the reader. Though sight imagery is most common, imagery may appeal to any of the senses. Good writers often attempt to appeal to several senses. The children were screaming and shouting in the fields. - “Screaming” and “shouting” appeal to our sense of hearing or auditory sense. He whiffed the aroma of brewed coffee. – “whiff” and “aroma” evoke our sense of smell or olfactory sense. The girl ran her hands on a soft satin fabric. – The idea of “soft” in this example appeals to our sense of touch or tactile sense.

PERSONIFICATION Personification gives an inanimate object characteristics of life. The wind howled in the storm.

METAPHOR A comparison between two unlike things. Does not use the word “like” or “as”. He is the black sheep of the family

SIMILE A comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as.” When I told her the truth about her boyfriend, she was as white as a ghost.

ALLUSION An allusion makes reference to a historical or literary person, place, or event with which the reader is assumed to be familiar. Many works of prose and poetry contain allusions to the Bible, mythology, and Shakespeare. "As the cave's roof collapsed, he was swallowed up in the dust like Jonah, and only his frantic scrabbling behind a wall of rock indicated that there was anyone still alive". The allusion in the sentence above is to Jonah. The reader is expected to recognize the reference to Jonah and the whale, which should evoke an image of being 'swallowed alive'... in this case, behind a wall of dust and rock.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE Writing or speech that is not meant to be taken literally. The many types of figurative language include metaphor, simile, and personification.

IDIOM An expression whose meaning is different from the sum of the meanings of its individual words. I must have eaten something bad last night because I was sick as a dog all night.

SENSORY LANGUAGE Writing or speech that appeals to one or more of the five senses. Upon entering the grocery store, I headed directly for the flower department, where I spotted yellow tulips. As I tenderly rested the tulips in my rusty shopping cart, I caught a whiff of minty dried eucalyptus, so I added the fragrant forest green bouquet of eucalyptus to my cart. While heading for the meat department, I smelled the stench of seafood, which made my appetite disappear. I absently grabbed a bloody red hunk of NY Strip and tossed it into my cart. Pushing my creaky shopping cart to the checkout line, I heard an employee announce over the PA that there was a special on shrimp. On the ride home, I realized I had forgotten to buy the crusty wheat bread I like so much.

DRAMATIC PURPOSE Author’s use of an element, character, or event to influence the reader, to further the plot, or to create irony Romeo and Juliet’s speeches from the balcony created dramatic purpose of their love.

EXTENDED METAPHOR A metaphor where several comparisons dealing with the same image function as the controlling image of the whole work. "I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That’s the kind of school I went to for real, okay?"