Linda Rickert -- Chapter 4 Setting

Class: Write the following exercise. Do not put your name on the paper.

1. Describe a setting where something happened –maybe it is river where you first learned there were minnows, maybe it is a restaurant where your dad got sick–(it did not have to happen to you). Describe setting in detail, make it as active as possible and use all the senses if you can. Is there something to indicate time? (Don't state the year or season directly). Either begin with the broad picture and move in or start with minutiae and move out. Keep mood, tone, diction, in mind. Do Not mention character or event.

1. On the second sheet of paper, describe briefly the character that lived in that scene: temperament, age, how dressed, etc. State and describe the event. (15)

Lesson plan:

Goal: Developing skill in describing setting, understanding how psychic distance and time, mood, tone, diction, can alter the description/effect, learn how others “see” your writing. Recognizing that place is important, defines a grounding spot, enables the reader to engage in the experience.

•  Students keep unrevealed their character and event paper.

•  Students trade their setting paper with someone whom they haven't worked with before.

•  Student reads the descriptive setting and circles significant detail, underlines what they consider important but less significant.

•  Student takes blank paper, as well as colors, markers, etc.

•  Student draws and colors setting as understood by the description.

•  On the back, student states the character and event that they feel might have inhabited/occurred in this world. (20)

***Pair up and discuss, as author and as artist, how the setting came across, did the drawing come close? Was it almost exact, or different than what the author pictured when he wrote it? Did the student's peer consider the same things significant as the author? How about character, event? Was time, weather, place, transcribed? What worked, what didn't? (15)

In class discussion: Each student responds as “author” & as “artist” (15)

•  Authors: Was anyone surprised by what the “artist” drew?

•  What made you think something was significant? Word choice? Repetition, description, emphasis? Did the artist agree?

•  What effect did space, or lack of it, seem to have on the drawing?

•  Was there something that signaled time that you felt worked especially well in the artist's rendering?

•  Artists: Setting can be seen as through a camera lens or as the world.

•  Did anyone “see” their peer's setting especially this way?

•  What made your peer's setting unique?

•  Did mood, tone, diction, affect the setting? How did it help you (the artist) to invent a character/event?

•  Authors: How did inserting the artist's character/event surprise you? Or did it surprise you?

•  Did you feel setting was specific to your character/event?

•  Artists: How was the author's character/ event different from what you thought it would be? Were you surprised by the author's character/event?

•  Did either the author or artist picture a character and/or event that was in conflict with the surroundings? How did that make the setting different?

•  Which was in chaos? The setting, event, or character?