Genres

Identify typical characteristics, terminology and major types of a genre

-– stories are connected series of events told through words (written or spoken), imagery (still and moving), body language, performance, music, or any other form of communication.

–– dramas are forms of text that are performed in front of an audience. They are also called plays. The written text of a drama contains dialogues, and stage directions. This genre has further categories such as comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy.

–– poetry is a form of text that follows a meter and rhythm, with each line and syllable. It is further subdivided into different genres, such an epic poem, narrative, romantic, dramatic, and lyric. Dramatic poetry includes melodrama, tragedy, and comedy, while other poems includes ode, sonnet, elegy, ballad, song, and epic.

–– literary nonfiction is a type of prose that employs the literary techniques usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on persons, places, and events in the real world without altering facts.

Identify major literary subgenres:

–– ballads: Poems that tells a story, usually (but not always) in four-line stanzas called quatrains. The ballad form is enormously diverse, and poems in this form may have any one of hundreds of different rhyme schemes and meters.

–– biography presents the facts about an individual's life and makes an attempt to interpret those facts, explaining the person's feelings and motivations.

–– drama is the portrayal of fictional or non-fictional events through the performance of written dialog (either prose or poetry). Dramas can be performed on stage, on film, or the radio. Dramas are typically called plays, and their creators are known as “playwrights” or “dramatists.”

–– essay: A short piece of writing, either formal or informal, which expresses the author’s argument about a particular subject

–– fable: A short tale used to teach a moral lesson, often with animals as characters

–– fairy tale: A story with fairies or other magical creatures, usually for children. A modern fairy tale is written in a traditional style with the elements of folklore but with a contemporary twist

–– folk tales: The songs, stories, myths, and proverbs of a people as handed down orally before they were ever written down.

–– haiku: A short poetic form from Japan characterized by juxtaposition, seasonal imagery, and number of on, which are similar to syllables. In English, haiku is a three-line poem with phrases of five, seven, and five syllables.

–– historical fiction: Stories centered around the basis of a partially historical situation; a novel set in a historical period

–– legend: A story, sometimes of a national or folk hero, which has a basis in fact but also includes imaginative material.

–– mystery: A novel involving: strangeness o solving a puzzling event or situation; something unknown; solving a crime; centered around a person who investigates wrongdoing ; centered around a person or persons employed to obtain secret information

–– myth: A legend or traditional narrative, often based in part on historical events, that reveals human behavior and natural phenomena by its symbolism.

–– realism: In literature, writers use realism as a literary technique to describe story elements, such as setting, characters, themes, etc., without using elaborate imagery, or figurative language, such as similes and metaphors. Through realism, writers explain things without decorative language or sugar-coating the events. Realism is something opposite to romanticism and idealism.

–– satire: a text that uses irony, sarcasm, and ridicule to expose/ make fun of human folly and vice

–– science fiction: • stories that often tell about science and technology of the future • involving partially true fictions laws or theories of science • Settings: o in the future o in space o on a different world o in a different universe or dimension

–– sonnets: Poems having fourteen lines, of which there are a few variations with this form. All sonnets, whether Italian or English, generally are written in iambic pentameter. Iambic Pentameter: An iamb is a combination of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Therefore, iambic pentameter has five stressed syllables and ten syllables total. Iambic pentameter was the most common meter used in traditional English poetry and drama.

--fantasy: A genre in literature that includes magical and/or supernatural elements as part of the plot, setting, or theme. Mythology and folklore often play a strong part in fantasy literature.

Practice sites: https://www.brainpop.com/english/studyandreadingskills/literarygenres/

Sources:

https://literarydevices.net/genre/

http://teacher.scholastic.com/reading/bestpractices/comprehension/genrechart.pdf

https://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfder/GenreCharacteristicsChart.pdf