Lesson · Grade 6 · English Language Arts
Setting: where and when a story happens
- Grade 6
- English Language Arts
- 1 min 11 s
- British Columbia
- BC6-EN-07
A short invented passage about a girl alone in a snowy train station after midnight is shown plain on a card, and the video asks where and when it happens. The place clues light up in blue and the time clues in amber while boxes beside the passage fill in Where, When (time of day, season and era) and Mood, ending with the setting named in one line under the text and the recap that setting is where and when a story happens.
Concept: Setting
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In one sentence
The question this lesson answers
Where and when does this short story happen?
Every story happens somewhere, at some time, and that is its setting.
Transcript
What the lesson says
Where and when does this short story happen?
Every story happens somewhere, at some time, and that is its setting.
A setting has two parts: where, which is the place, and when, which is the time.
Look for clues to the place. This story happens in an empty train station.
The windows and the track are more clues, and they all point to the same place.
Now the time: it is past midnight, so this happens in the middle of the night.
Snow is a clue to the season, so it is most likely winter.
Her phone is a clue to the era, so the story is set in the present day.
Put the clues together: an empty train station, late on a winter night, in the present day.
The setting also sets the mood: alone, at night, in the cold, the story feels tense.
Setting is where and when a story happens, and it shapes how the story feels.
Curriculum
Where this fits
- British Columbia, Grade 6
English Language Arts, Story/text: literary elementsBC6-EN-07
Previous: How Writers Show a CharacterNext: Simile: comparing two different things with like or as
- British Columbia, Grade 7
English Language Arts, Story/text: literary elementsBC7-EN-07
Previous: How Writers Show a CharacterNext: Simile: comparing two different things with like or as
This lesson is also listed in Grade 7.
The outcomes and strands follow the British Columbia curriculum.
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