YEAR 7 ENGLISH - CREATING THE PERFECT SETTING

The perfect setting adds colour and life to a story. Good writers give their settings a special quality by adding meaningful
detail upon meaningful detail to create an absorbing picture that completely involves the reader in the story and furthers
the atmosphere or plot.
Your task – discussing your answers with your elbow partners, carefully read through the following extracts and answer
the questions.

The Cell
The cell was roughly six by ten, with a metal bunk covered by a thin mattress and woollen army blanket; a toilet
without seat or toilet paper; a washbowl, brownish from residue and grime; a small metal shelf upon which was a pan,
a tin cup, and a tablespoon. A single light bulb hung over the centre of the cell, and at the end opposite the door was a
barred window, which looked out onto a sycamore tree behind the courthouse. I could see the sunlight on the upper
leaves. But the window was too high to catch sight of any other buildings or the ground.
From A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, Hodder headline Australia 1998, reprinted with permission

1. What is your reaction to the description of the prison cell in the extract from A Lesson Before Dying above?

2. What kind of story would you expect to read based on the description above? Justify your answer with evidence.

3. What makes the description an effective one?

4. Can you draw the scene?

Charles Dickens is an expert in creating the perfect setting for the action of his characters. Here is his famous
description of a fog. Notice his attention to detail and the repetition of the word fog.

Fog
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls
defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes,
fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in
the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwhales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of
ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe
of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ‘prentice
boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over parapets into the nether sky of fog, with fog all around them,
as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.

From Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

1. What is your reaction to the description of the fog in the extract from Great Expectations above?

2. What kind of story would you expect to read based on the description above? Justify your answer with evidence.

3. What makes the description an effective one?

4. Can you draw the scene?

Sandhills Beach

Sandhills Beach was a crescent of butter-coloured sand between brooding basalt headlands, and beyond the points the
sea broke gently on splayed reefs. Behind the beach the sandhills climbed steeply and on their sides and crests
perched breadfruit trees whose parchment leaves clashed in the breeze, and on the slopes sand-vines trailed their thick
saucer leaves and pale blue bell-like flowers. Beyond again, where they left the dogcart and hobbled the horse, was a
grove of she-oaks.

From The Mango Tree by Ronald McKie

1. What is your reaction to the description of Sandhills beach in the extract from The Mango Tree above?

2. What kind of story would you expect to read based on the description above? Justify your answer with evidence.

3. What makes the description an effective one?

4. Can you draw the scene?

YOUR TURN
Write a detailed description of one of these scenes or one of your own choosing, with a focus on creating an effective
setting for the scene:

• Grand Final day

• a bank robbery
• the Grand Prix
• a welcoming classroom
• a crowded restaurant
• a suspenseful house auction
• sleuthing around a dilapidated house
• a boring school assembly
• a tense/awkward family reunion
• the dog pound
• a road accident
• end-of-year party