Key Words and Meanings - Year 7 English

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare.

  Soliloquy	A speech in a play that the character speaks to himself or herself or to the audience, rather than to the other characters.
  Unrequited love	If a person loves someone who doesn't love them back, the person's love is unrequited.
  Iambic pentameter	A line of poetry written in iambic pentameter has five pairs of "beats" - an unstressed syllable (short) followed by an stressed syllable (long).
  Stage direction	Instructions in a play script, telling the actors and actresses what to do. These are often written in italics
  Resolution / Denoument	The ending of a play / story, when all the different problems are solved.

• Dystopia

  Dystopia	A very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future, after something terrible has happened
  Setting	The location and situation of a story. When and where is it taking place, and what is happening at that time?
  Conflict	Every story has a problem / desire that needs to be solved. What is driving the story?
  Narrative voice / perspective	The person who is telling the story. Whose "eyes" are we seeing through? A character? A narrator? Is it the same person all the way through?
  Theme	A repeated idea throughout a story.

• The Bone Sparrow – Zana Fraillon.

  Protagonist	The leading character or one of the major characters in a play, film, novel.
  social justice	Social justice is the equal access to wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. Charles Dickens' key objective of writing fiction was to promote social justice by confronting and condemning the glaring inequalities in the victorian society.
  poverty	This refers to the complete lack of the means necessary to meet basic personal needs such as food, clothing and shelter. Unlike the wealthy few, majority of the Victorian society lived in poverty and this is one of the themes of 'A Christmas Carol'.
  Conflict	A serious disagreement or argument.
  Nostalgia	A sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.
  Ambition	A strong desire to do or achieve something, also associated with success. This can be linked to desire to socially climb.

• Selling the Experience
• “Diverse Lives”; revision for end of year assessment.

  Ballad	A popular narrative ("story") song passed down orally ("speaking / singing"). In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains (four line stanzas), with the first & third, and second & fourth lines rhyming.
  Autobiography	Writing a text telling the story of your OWN life, from your point of view.
  Stanza	A stanza is a grouped set of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation, on a related topic. A "poetry paragraph".
  Rhyme scheme	A rhyme scheme is the pattern of sounds that repeats at the end of a line or stanza. E.G. regular rhyme? Alternating lines or rhyming couplets?
  Protagonist / antagonist	A protagonist is the main character in a story. An antagonist is their main enemy / rival.

• End of Year exam + Speaking and Listening.

  Audience	Who has this been written for? Older people? Younger people? People with an interest is something?
  Literary devices	The techniques or "tools" writers use to make their words powerful. E.G. Metaphor, simile, rhetorical questions.
  Direct address	Speaking directly to your audience: "Have you ever...?" "It is our responsibility, all of us..."
  Tone of voice	Changing your tone of voice means changing the way you speak. Louder or softer? Happy or sad? Sarcastic or earnest?
  Pace / emphasis	The pace of your speech is how quickly you are speaking. By slowing down for certain words or pausing after them (plus speaking more loudly), you can put emphasis on ideas to make them stand out.