THEME!!

A THEME is the central idea, underlying message, or overarching concept that a writer explores throughout a piece of literature.

• Often conveys a broader meaning about life, society, or human nature

• Communicated through the characters, plot, setting, and other elements of the text.

Literary tone is the author's attitude or feelings about the subject matter and audience of a work of literature.

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Tone

Passage (ii)    
The treadmill began to whir, and I gripped its handlebars as the belt started moving me backwards.  All I could do now was run -- or begrudgingly barrel forward -- toward an outdated screen that showed me the terrain I was supposed to be running on.  It was made of red squares stacked up, one on top of another: the higher stacks were supposed to be steep hills, and the lower ones, valleys.  I tried to picture them as burning coals to see if that would make me speed up or at least feel like this exercise was somehow connected to nature -- even one of its cruel parts.

Passage (ii)

     The treadmill began to whir, and my heart sped up faster than the belt could go.  Instead of pressing "select" on my remote control to escape into a TV show, I had just selected "Power Run."  A sleek screen with a simple set of red lines showed me the terrain on which I was running.  Those red lines looked like a pulse, and they got me to run farther and faster than I could ever run when I'm outside, worried about weather, cars, or other people.  It may not have looked like I was going anywhere that night, but I had just broken out of a ten-year slump. 

Suffixes are letters added to the end of a base word to change its conjugation, word type, or other grammar properties like plurality

Suffixes

Context Clues

Hints that help define a difficult or unusual word

Connotation

The feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal meaning.

Connotation Examples

Rhetorical Devices

• Hyperbole - exaggeration

• Understatement - presenting something as smaller than it actually is

• Verbal Irony - saying one thing but meaning another

• Paradox - contradicting ideas that have an element of truth to them

Greek Roots

The Greek root auto means "self". Based on the etymology, what is the meaning of the word autobiography?