{STORY ELEMENTS

SETTING

In a story, a SETTING is the TIME and PLACE where the story happens.

A SETTING should help inform readers about the characters and plot.

Changing a setting can greatly affect other elements in a story.

WHAT IS “SETTING?”

Let’s look at a familiar story and see if we can identify the SETTING of the story:

In “The Three Little Pigs” when does the story take place?

Where does the story take place?

Who are the main characters?

The 3 Little Pigs

With such a well-known, traditional story, it can be interesting to see what would happen if you changed the setting.

How might the story change if it took place in outer space, in the far future?

What would happen if?

Instead of a forest, perhaps you might have the pigs in a spaceship, looking for a safe place to colonize.

Instead of houses, the story might take place on a space station!

And instead of a big bad wolf, you might instead have an alien creature following you!

Pigs In Space!

Or, let’s try another setting: What if the pigs lived in the ocean? How would that change the setting?

Instead of houses, they might live in coral reefs with other fishes, or in the wreck of a sunken ship!

And instead of a wolf, maybe they would have a big, bad SHARK!

20,000 Pigs Beneath The Sea!

In the first story we’re going to read, The Three Ninja Pigs, author Corey Rosen Schwartz and Illustrator Dan Santat have put the story of The Three Little Pigs in the setting of ancient Japan; let’s see how it changes the story!

Pork Chop! Haiiiii-yah!

In the second story we’re going to read, The Three Little Javelinas, author Susan Lowell and illustrator Jim Harris put the story of the Three Little Pigs in the American Southwest!

Get along, little piggies!