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C

Cause & Effect

Cause - Why an event in the story happens.
Effect - What happened because of the cause.

Remember, effects can have more than one cause. Causes can lead to more than one effect.

Character

A person or animal in a story. We learn about them by what they DO, what they SAY or THINK, and what OTHERS do or say about them.  You can also learn about a character based on how they look, but this does not always work.  (Remember to not judge a book by its cover.)

Climax

SEE "PLOT"

Compare and Contrast

Compare - Describe how two or more things are similar.

Contrast - Describe how two or more things are different.

Use a Venn diagram or other organizer to compare and contrast.  This is made with two overlapping circles.  One circle is one topic, the other circle is the second topic.  Where the circles overlap, write facts that are true for both topics.

Conflict

SEE "PLOT"

Context Clues

This is a way to figure out what new words mean, only using the words around it in the text.

Tom was shaking with anticipation because his birthday was tomorrow and he couldn't wait to see what he'd get.

Clues: birthday, couldn't wait, etc.