8th grade Setting and Plot

Setting and Plot

by Lacy McAllister

​Setting

​it is the time and place of action for a literary work. A story may take place in any era- past, present, or future. A story may take place in any part of the world- real or imagined. Smaller aspects of setting might be specific places such as a middle school, the mall, or a baseball field. Setting is very important because when and where the action of a story occurs directly affects other elements in the story. For example, if you read a story with a historical setting, how might the action and ideas of the characters differ from those in a story set in the present day or future?

​Look for clues to help you know something about the time period or place of action.

​Amy looked around at the tables in the lunchroom. They were different from the tables at her old middle school in Memphis. Instead of the tables being connected to the chairs, the table and chairs were separate. She thought about the students she had seen in the hallways yesterday morning. Some of them stood around in small groups chatting. Some of them were talking on their cell phones. And others listened to their MP3s. No one seemed anxious or in a hurry. It was nice that things were actually calm and peaceful, which was different from the chaotic mornings at her old school.

​If you had to identify a time period, what clues could you use? One thing mentioned is MP3s. This helps the reader identify the time setting as the modern day since Mp3s have not been around for very long. What about the physical setting of the action? Where does the story take place? If you answered that it takes place in a middle school, then you are correct. Based on these details, the reader can say that the story is set in a modern-day middle school.

Open Ended

The History of the Telephone

A tall young professor...was desperately busy in a noisy machine-shop in Boston...He was wholly absorbed in the making of a nondescript machine, a sort of crude harmonica with a clock-spring reed, a magnet, and a wire.  It was unlike any other thing that had ever been made in any country.  The young professor had been toiling over it for three years...and on this hot afternoon in June, 1875, he heard an almost inaudible sound- a faint TWANG- come from the machine itself.  His eyes blazed with delight, and he sprang in a passion of eagerness to an adjoining room in which stood a young mechanic who was assisting him.  What is the setting of this passage?

Open Ended

The Mysterious Island

At that moment...the voice of a man...was heard. "Is everything thrown out?" "No, here are still 2,000 dollars in gold." A heavy bag immediately plunged into the sea. "Does the balloon rise?" "A little, but it will not be long before it falls again." "What still remains to be thrown out?" "Nothing." "Yes! the car!" "Let us catch hold of the net, and into the sea with the car."

This was, in fact, the last and only mode of lightening the balloon. The ropes which held the car were cut, and the balloon, after its fall, mounted 2,000 feet. The five voyagers had hoisted themselves into the net, and clung to the meshes. What is the setting of this passage?

​Plot

​The pattern of events in a story, including how the story works out. A plot shapes a work of literature. In turn, everything that happens propels the plot. For example, pay attention to what the characters say and do. How does the behavior of characters drive the plot? Also keep track of incidents that happen.

​Introduction- sets the stage for the events to come.  Gives details about the setting and characters.  

​As the story unfolds, problems, or Conflicts, occur between opposing forces.  Rising action will complicate the lives of the characters by these various conflicts.  Climax- highest point of action in a story.  Usually filled with suspense, as readers want to find out what will happen next as the story reaches a peak.  Falling Action- after the highest point of action and where most stories start to move towards an end.  Major conflicts begin to be solved and other details of the story are wrapped up.  Resolution- (denouement) is the outcome of the story.  Conflict is resolved, and loose ends may be tied up.  

Open Ended

White Fang

1. Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolution, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughterm but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

2. But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled- blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.

3. In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over,- a man whom the wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the wild harry and crush into submission man- man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.

4. They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces. What is the setting of this passage?

Multiple Choice

White Fang

1. Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolution, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughterm but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

2. But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled- blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.

3. In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over,- a man whom the wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the wild harry and crush into submission man- man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.

4. They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces. What is the main conflict of this passage?

• The men are lost in the frozen wilderness.

• The men are trying to travel in extremely harsh conditions.  

• The men are carrying a dead body on a dog sled.  

• The men are too cold and weak to continue their journey.  

Multiple Select

White Fang

1. Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolution, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughterm but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

2. But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled- blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.

3. In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over,- a man whom the wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the wild harry and crush into submission man- man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.

4. They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces. Select FOUR sentences to support Part A.

• "The land itself was a desolation; lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness."

• "Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs."

• "But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant."

• "They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies."

• "The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement."

Multiple Choice

Read these sentences from paragraph 1:

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. These sentences are part of the

• resolution

• climax

• introduction

• conflict