Reader’s Journal: Ten Literary Elements

The purpose of the Reader’s Journal is to provide you with a place to explore ideas, discuss reading, and ask questions about the texts you read for this course. The reader’s journal will ask you to reflect on the readings for the week with questions as prompts, but your response does not need to be in essay format. If it makes more sense to provide a bulleted list or outline, please do so. The language style in the reader’s journal can be more informal than your other writing assignments, but please be sure to use academic terms and ideas from the reading to support your ideas. When referring to the “events of the story”, call it “plot” so as to familiarize yourself with the academic vocabulary of literature. 

Assignment Instructions

Read “Godfather Death,” a short tale by the Brothers Grimm, in which the protagonist tries to cheat Death. 

Then, create a document where you identify each of the following Ten Literary Elements (listed below) with: 

A definition (in your own words) applied to the story

An example (in your own words) with a corresponding page number

Conflict

Exposition

Protagonist

Suspense

Antagonist

Crisis

Foreshadowing

Climax

Conclusion or resolution

Dramatic situation

If you need additional detail or examples of each of these terms, the website www.literaryterms.net (opens in new window) is a good resource.

Requirements

Page count: 2 – 3 

APA Formatted Reference page