When and Where?
Last lesson, we covered the 5 elements of a story. Today we are going to look closer at setting. Setting is a vital part of a story because it will impact the characters and how a story unfolds.
Setting
Setting could be simply descriptive, like a lonely cottage on a mountain. Social conditions, historical time, geographical locations, weather, immediate surroundings, and timing are all different aspects of setting.
Setting is the time and place of a story or play.
Time can include the time of day, month, season, year, or holiday.
Place can include a specific building, city, country, or culture.
Mood & Imagery
Mood
Generally speaking, any word that can be used to describe emotion can be used to describe the mood of a story, poem, or other piece of writing. Here are some words that are commonly used to describe mood:
Cheerful
Gloomy
Humorous
Whimsical
Romantic
Mysterious
Calm
Hopeful
Angry
Fearful
Tense
Lonely
Mood is an important part of setting because the setting of a story is usually reflective of the mood of the story, which might change as events unfold in the story.
To deepen your understanding, check out these videos.
Imagery
Imagery is similar to setting in the sense that it helps to establish mood using descriptions of physical things in the world of the story. Not every image in a work will be indicative of the story's mood, but images that are repeated or described in detail usually do reflect the mood.
A poem that spends a lot of time describing babbling brooks, gentle rolling hills, and herds of sheep might have an calming mood.
A story that has a lot of roses, candlelight, and boxes of chocolates might be trying to establish a romantic mood.
The imagery of a story allows the reader to imagine the mood in the story and experience the setting. Often this can be done by describing the setting through our five senses- see, hear, smell, feel and taste.
Setting in The Breadwinner
Mood: Depressing and frightening; fearful, dangerous and threatening. There are also periods of hope within the book.
Imagery: The author paints a visual picture of complete destruction and the damage that war has done. The family home in particular is wrecked by the violence, a shell of a building that is a visual history of the damage that has been caused by the war and Taliban.
The novel The Breadwinner takes place in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city. The story is set only a couple short years after the Taliban militia had taken over the city in September of 1996. Afghanistan is a country located in central Asia well known for the Hindu Kush mountain range.
This novel is an interpretation of real events. The city is falling apart due to continual bombings that have occurred. While we are told that much of the war has moved North of Kabul you can still see the effects. Families have lost loved ones and suffer from health and poverty issues daily. Kabul is no longer the city it once was.
This novel is an excellent example of how the mood and imagery are created and reflected in the setting of story.
Setting Brainstorm with Padlet! Activity
Now that we have taken a closer look at the importance of setting, we are going to create a group Padlet to brainstorm some potential settings and think about the imagery and mood of a particular setting.
Your job is to:
Find an image on Google that you think would be a great backdrop or setting for a story.
Use this link or QR code to access our setting Padlet
If you aren't sure how to create a Padlet- please refer to my video
Create a "title" for your setting- please include your name
Under the "write something" include and description of the setting based on the 5 senses. See my example if you aren't sure.
What you see?
What you hear?
What you smell?
What you feel?
What you might taste?
What mood might the setting have based on the picture?
What story could be told using this setting?
Comment on one other classmates picture and tell us what kind of story you think could happen in that setting- just like your own.
