Exposition

Describe the setting

Write a description of the setting that shows how it establishes mood for the story. (This
is deceptively difficult.)
The setting of the book, Blackbriar by William Sleator takes place in London, in the
countryside Dun Chester. The setting is gloomy and dreary. For example, on page
28, the setting is described, The trees stood above them, their exposed roots
twisting and clutching down the mound of earth, almost to the road. Just as
suddenly, the forest disappeared, the mound sank away, and they were driving
down the center of a flat, almost tree less valley, exposed to the wind and the hills
towering around them. One bill loomed closer than the rest, its top black.

Another example of the setting is from page 33 to page 36. The setting is in a house
called Blackbriar which is described as Stark and gray, the old house rose from the
ground as if it had grown there. The only sounds were a few lonely birdcalls, and
the wind. It was not a large house. The nubby flint walls were two stories high,
broken by only a few narrow windows. The pointed roof was of faded red tiles,
covered by yellowish lichen, and extended for a foot beyond the walls. There were
tiles missing in places, and some of the bricks in the two chimneys were gone. It
was desolate, it was lonely, it was almost forbidding. There was a feeling of life
about the place, as if it had not been left for centuries to crumble and decay. They
followed it to the right, into a large room. It was dark inside that at first they could
hardly see a thing. They could make out a great stone fireplace against the left wall,
with mantel made of rough-hewn log. There was a spinning wheel in one corner,
and a bookcase built into a wall. In front of the fireplace were two heavy sagging
chairs and a round wooden table. On the other side of the fireplace, behind a door,
was a very steep, narrow, winding stairway. And next to this was another door,
thick and heavy and ancient. Black iron hinges in strange curving shapes held it to
the wall. There seemed to be words carved into the door. Cobwebs, naturally, were
everywhere. The kitchen was a narrow room, but compact and well arranged. The
wooden sink was just below the window. Against one wall was a low shelf, which
could be used as a working surface, with other shelves below it. Filling the right side
of the room was a big black coal stove. Past the kitchen was a dining room with a
dark red tile floor and a small fireplace. The only furniture was a large oval wooden
table with four chairs around it. The chairs were ornately carved with figures of
strange beasts, crouching and eating each other. Another winding stairway led up
from this room. They followed it to a small-whitewashed bedroom, which led to a
larger bedroom, which in turn led to the largest bedroom of all, at the top of the
stairway from the living room." The setting establishes the dark and mysterious
mood for the story.

MULTI-MEDIA
Design a book cover
Book publishers release new editions with updated covers. You could create it by hand or
use Photoshop or Gimp or some other application to design it. Your design must show
understanding of a theme. Do not forget to include a paragraph that explains your
design. For inspiration, check out these re-imagined book covers: http://goo.gl/F1UI1.



























By William Sleator
The book that I chose to read was Blackbriar, written by William Sleator. I chose
to design a book cover for Blackbriar because I think that it is easy and a fun and
creative way for me to use different pictures and photo shop it to create one
piece. This multimedia form links to the text that I wrote about the exposition,
which describe the setting. I create a book cover to show that I understand the
setting of the book. The literary concept that my multimedia piece explores is the
plot because the plot of my book is about this house called Blackbriar and I have
to design a house on my book cover. The choice that I made as I designed and
constructed my multimedia piece was that I had to include the house somewhere
because the plot is about this spooky house. I designed the house in the forest
because the setting takes place in the countryside on a rocky hillside. I also
included the main characters, Danny and Lark in the book cover.

Links of photos:
http://www.hauntedstudio.com/Haunted%20Hill.jpg
http://windling.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54fcf738588340192ab9ad8bf970d-800wi
http://render.fineartamerica.com/images/images-stretched-canvas-
search/15.00/15.00/black/break/images-medium-5/autumn-lane-heidi-
brantley.jpg
http://whudat.de/images/Ching-Che-Lin_02.jpg