Narrative Elements: Using Specific Details for Setting

Janine Sherman
Dr. Rybakova
11th Grade Language Arts
Video Links for Flipped Lesson:
*The following video says 7th Grade, but it is helpful information for 11th grade as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8u0_0IDl10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umAQxrI9TTU
Rationale:
This lesson series strengthens student writing abilities. Students are in the eleventh grade and in
last quarter of school; they have just finished their FSA argumentative writing. To finish the year
they are doing a narrative writing unit. It is important for students to have experience with a wide
variety of genres so they are more diversified writers. Mentor texts are important tools because
they serve as a demonstration of effective writing, students can them emulate this to improve
their own writing skills. This specific lesson plan focuses on introducing setting in a story.
Setting is one of the several important elements in story telling because it adds realistic details to
the story. Students will learn how to use mood, sensory images, specific details and figurative
language to add meaning to their narratives. This lesson plan uses mentor texts for students to
analyze effective examples of setting from popular literature. Then students will apply the
techniques they learned for writing effective setting into their own writing.
Standards:
LAFS.1112.W.1.3

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique,
well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
a. Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation and its
significance, establishing one or multiple point(s) of view, and introducing a narrator
and/or characters; create a smooth progression of experiences or events.
b. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple
plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
c. Use a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they build on one another to
create a coherent whole and build toward a particular tone and outcome (e.g., a sense

of mystery, suspense, growth, or resolution).

d. Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid
picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.
e. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on what is experienced, observed,
or resolved over the course of the narrative.
LAFS.1112.RL.1.3
Analyze the impact of the authors choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a
story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are
introduced and developed).

Objectives:
Students will be able to:

Identify elements of an effective and detailed setting for a narrative.

Construct their own detailed setting through writing activity.

Materials:

Journals/Writing Utensil
White Board/Marker
Mentor Text handouts
Computer/Projector

Anticipatory Set: 5 minutes

Bellringer Prompt for Journal: Write two or three sentences that introduce a setting.
Teaching Strategy:
Time
10 minutes

What student is doing

Student are listening to
teacher read aloud the mentor
texts, while sketching the
scene, in their journals, as it
unfolds.

10 minutes

Students are instructed to

What teacher is doing

Teacher will be reading two
mentor text excerpts that
demonstrate what an effective
and detailed settings sounds
like. Teacher instructs
students to sketch the scene
in their journals while she is
reading.
Teacher passes out paper

circle words from the mentor

text handouts that contribute
to setting. As a class the
students will categorize this
information and write them
on the board.

10 minutes

10 minutes

copies of expert texts and

asks students to circle all
words that add details to the
setting. Teacher will ask
students to come up to the
board and write the different
kinds of details that
contribute to setting; such as
time, mood, geography,
people, figurative language,
and sensory images.
Students listen to teacher read Together with the class,
aloud bad examples of
teacher will come up with
setting; students will
bad examples of setting.
volunteer answers as to why
Changing the mentor text
this example does not work
details into nondescript,
well.
general statements. Class will
discuss why these examples
are not effective.
Students are doing a free
Teacher projects three images
write that is focused on
on the board. Students free
setting; the writing should be write for ten minutes using
inspired by one of the three
the images as inspiration;
pictures projected on the
their writing must include a
board and it should use
focus on setting using the
examples from each category categories listed on the board.
listed on the board.

Summary/Closure: 5 minutes
As an exit ticket students will copy down on a small sheet of paper what they personally think
was their best line that they created in their free write; this line should exemplify setting in the
way that was discussed in class.
Assessment:
Students will turn in their journals at the end of the week for a grade. They will be graded on
their completion of a free write that uses descriptive detail to introduce setting. Students will also
be informally assessed for their participation in class discussion; meaning that they contributed at
least once during the whole class discussion and activities. Later in the unit students will be
formally assessed on their summative narrative writing assignment.
Accommodations:

Herbert Millner, the student with ADHD will be placed with a shoulder partner who is hard
working and on task to prevent distractions. Herbert will be allowed to take breaks in
concentration if needed. Herbert will be allowed extra time to take home his journal activities for
homework. The student is given preferential seating during class, somewhere away from
distractors like windows.
Paten Vander, the student with the speech impairment will be allowed to use a journal or an aid
to communicate their thoughts with peers. Participation grade will be based on students full
engagement in instruction and partner activity; he does not necessarily have to contribute in
whole class discussion if he does not feel comfortable.
The teacher will check in individually with Lya Gross, the student with dyslexia, to make sure
she understands the instructions fully. Lya will be allowed extra time to finish her journal
activities for homework.
Oliver Fore, the student with mild autism, will be placed with a shoulder partner that he feels
comfortable with. The student will be given preferential seating during class. The student will be
allowed extra time to complete the journal activities for homework. Participation grade will be
based on students full engagement in instruction and partner activity; she does not necessarily
have to contribute in whole class discussion if she does not feel comfortable.
The two English Language Learners will be provided with dictionaries and the teacher will make
sure that that the students fully understand the directions. The ELLs will be given extra time to
complete the journal activities for homework.

Plan B:
If projector will not work, students will do free write activity on whatever topic they want, but
must stick to setting focus. If handouts are unavailable, teacher will project them on board and
the class will go through it, circling descriptions, together. If students are slow to complete the
activities they can complete the journaling activity for homework.

Citations/Appendices
Appendix A:
Mentor texts for Descriptive Setting
There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men
and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At
high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun
on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing
aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing
parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station
wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants,
including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and
garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.
The Great Gatsby
An excerpt from The Hunger Games.
Sixty seconds. That's how long we're required to stand on our metal circles before the sound of a
gong releases us. Step off before the minute is up, and land mines blow your legs off. Sixty
seconds to take in the ring of tributes all equidistant from the Cornucopia, a giant golden horn
shaped like a cone with a curved tail, the mouth of which is at least twenty feet high, spilling
over with the things that will give us life here in the arena. Food, containers of water, weapons,
medicine, garments, fire starters. Strewn around the Cornucopia are other supplies, their value
decreasing the farther they are from the horn. For instance, only a few steps from my feet lies a
three-foot square of plastic. Certainly it could be of some use in a downpour. But there in the
mouth, I can see a tent pack that would protect from almost any sort of weather. If I had the guts
to go in and fight for it against the other twenty-three tributes. Which I have been instructed not
to do.
We're on a flat, open stretch of ground. A plain of hard-packed dirt. Behind the tributes across
from me, I can see nothing, indicating either a steep downward slope or even a cliff. To my right
lies a lake. To my left and back, sparse piney woods. This is where Haymitch would want me to
go. Immediately.

Pictures for free write activity that will be displayed on Projector

https://www.google.com/search?
q=pictures+of+walking+feet&biw=1093&bih=534&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahU
KEwjPlL3Lv7nNAhUFlx4KHSycCkYQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=9PHYx9cfnzFlGM%3A

https://www.google.com/search?
q=pictures+of+walking+feet&biw=1093&bih=534&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahU

KEwjPlL3Lv7nNAhUFlx4KHSycCkYQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=creepy+woods&imgrc=gjjjnj
SpbgU6CM%3A

https://www.google.com/search?
q=farm&biw=1093&bih=498&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXlvrrwLnNAh
XEuB4KHc23BDsQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=LQf7AMf9-CPo2M%3A