Nonfiction Terms Types of Nonfiction Biography: An account of a persons life as written by another person Autobiography: A writers account of his or her own life Diary: A writers day-to-day account of his or her experiences Journal: A writers record of significant experiences that includes thoughts, feelings, and impressions Essay: Brief work of nonfiction that offers an opinion on a subject Newspaper article: Brief factual account of current events Inferences and Conclusions Judgments based on reasoning rather than on a direct or explicit statements. A conclusion based on facts or circumstances; understanding gained by reading between the lines. Generalization A conclusion drawn from specific information that is used to make a broad statement about a topic or person. Authors Purpose The authors intent either to inform or teach someone about something, to entertain people or to persuade or convince his/her audience to do or not do something. Types of Author Purpose Describe: To tell what something looks like, sounds like, or feels like Inform: To teach the reader Persuade: To convince a reader to believe an idea or to take a course of action Narrate: To relate a story or to recount events Entertain: To amuse readers Authors Technique Methods an author uses in order to accomplish his or her purpose Includes: Style, Diction, Connotation, Denotation, Bias Authors Technique Continued Style: The authors choices regarding language, sentence structure, voice, and tone in order to communicate with the reader. Diction: An authors choice of words, phrases, sentence structures and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning and tone. Connotation: The range of associations that a word or phrase suggests in addition to its dictionary meaning. Denotation: The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests. Bias: The subtle presence of a positive or negative approach toward a topic. Connections Between Texts Basicallyhow do these two texts compare? Columbusde Vaca main idea-main idea point of view-point of view Purpose-purpose Characters-characters Setting-setting problems/conflict-problems/conflict Themes-themes Main Idea The authors central thought; the chief topic of a text expressed or implied in a word or phrase; the topic sentence of a paragraph. Summarization Capturing all of the most important parts of the original text (paragraph, story, poem), but expressing them in a much shorter space, and as much as possible in the readers own words. Authors Argument The methods an author uses to persuade the reader Includes three types of appeals: Emotional Logical Appeal to credibility Emotional Appeal (Pathos) An emotional appeal is a method of persuasion that's designed to create an emotional response. Logical Appeal (Logos) A method of persuasion based on evidence and reasoning. Types: Analogies (comparisons) Statistics Examples Facts Appeal to Credibility (Ethos) A means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader. Constructed Response What does Flights End mean to Kathy? What does Charlie mean by I want beginnings? What do each of them seem to want out of life right now? Find proof from the story to back up your answers. There are connections between the journals written by Columbus and de Vaca. One connection is that both were involved with groups of natives. However, only Columbus had a positive connection with them.