RL.7.3: How Setting, Characters and Plot Shape Each Other in a Story
In plain English: RL.7.3 is the Common Core grade 7 ELA standard that asks students to analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact, such as how the setting shapes the characters or the plot. Students trace causes and effects between the setting, the characters and the events, and explain how a change in one element changes the others. It builds on RL.6.3.
Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy · Domain: Reading Standards for Literature · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details · Official standard
Students learn that the parts of a story do not sit side by side like items on a list. The setting (where and when the story happens, including the weather, the land and what is available to eat) pushes on the characters and the plot, and the characters' choices push back. RL.7.3 asks seventh graders to analyze these interactions: to name two elements, point to the words that connect them, and explain the cause and the effect. The modeled reading is the opening of Jack London's White Fang (1906), where two men haul a sled across a frozen land that the narrator describes almost as an enemy.
In Guided Practice, students trace a cause-and-effect chain through the first night's camp in the same chapter, where hunger in the frozen land sets a wolf pack on the men's trail. In Independent Practice they read the opening of chapter II of Johanna Spyri's Heidi (translated by Elisabeth P. Stork), in which a young girl arrives at her grandfather's hut high on a mountain pasture. The homework moves Heidi to a city house in Frankfurt, so students can see how a new setting changes the same character.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Identify the setting of a scene, including its time, place and physical conditions such as cold, darkness or a lack of food
Explain how a setting shapes what characters do, think and feel, using quoted evidence with paragraph numbers
Explain how a setting causes or limits events in the plot, using a because-chain of two or more links
Explain how characters' choices move the plot, and how the same setting can affect two characters differently
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
Describing how a plot unfolds in a series of episodes and how characters respond or change RL.6.3
Citing textual evidence for what a text says and for inferences drawn from it RL.6.1
Naming the setting, main characters and main conflict of a story
Using cause-and-effect words such as because, so and as a result
"Your class goes on the same one-day hike twice: once on a warm, sunny day in May, and once in a sudden snowstorm with the trail buried. Write two things the students would do differently in the snowstorm, and one problem that could happen only in the snowstorm."
Collect answers in two columns: what the people do differently (walk closer together, stop talking to save breath, turn back early) and what happens differently (someone gets lost, the bus cannot reach the trailhead). Point out that nobody changed the students or the plan; only the place and the weather changed, and both the people and the events changed with them. Tell the class that writers use setting the same way, and that today they will explain those links in a story.
Direct Instruction15 minutes
Key words:
Story elements: the main parts of a story or play. This lesson uses three: setting, characters and plot.
Setting: when and where a story happens. It includes the time of day and year, the weather, the land, and what the place has or lacks, such as food or shelter.
Character: a person, or an animal that acts like one, in a story.
Plot: the events of a story and the order they happen in. Its conflict is the struggle at its center, for example a person against nature.
Interact: to act on each other. When elements interact, a change in one causes a change in another.
Personification: describing something that is not human as if it were, for example a forest that frowns.
Show Diagram 1. Every arrow is a question students can ask of any scene. An answer that only names the setting ("It is cold") is a description; an answer that says what the cold causes is analysis.
Introduce the text: White Fang opens in the frozen far North, the land Jack London had seen in the Klondike region of Canada in 1897. Two men are traveling along a frozen river with a dog team and a sled. The paragraph marked [...] describes the dogs and the sled, which carries a long, narrow box. Words to know: ominous (threatening), desolation (an empty, lifeless place), mirthless (without joy), sphinx (an ancient Egyptian statue with a mysterious smile), infallibility (never being wrong), futility (uselessness), toiled (worked hard), harry (attack again and again), dictum (a rule), cessation (stopping), unawed (not frightened), indomitable (impossible to defeat), discernible (able to be seen), masques (masks), spectral (ghostly), puny (small and weak), colossal (huge) and abysses (deep, empty spaces). Read the passage aloud while students follow the numbered paragraphs.
1Dark spruce forest frowned on either side 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 desolation, 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 laughter, 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.
[...]
2In 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.
3But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tanned leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.
Jack London, White Fang, Part I, chapter I, "The Trail of the Meat" (opening) (1906). Public domain (published 1906). Source text.
Setting sets up the conflict
What kind of struggle does paragraph 1 prepare the reader for?
Result: The forest "frowned" and the land is "the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild" (paragraph 1). London uses personification: he gives the land a face and a heart. Because the setting is described like a living enemy, the reader expects a conflict of people against nature before any person has appeared.
Setting has already shaped the plot
What has the Wild already done before the story begins?
Result: The box on the sled holds "a third man whose toil was over," a man "whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down" (paragraph 2). The cold land has already killed one traveler, so the plot starts with a death the setting caused and a journey that carries it.
Setting predicts events to come
What rule does the Wild follow, and what does that rule suggest will happen?
Result: "Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement" (paragraph 2). The men and dogs are the only things moving, so the rule tells the reader that the setting will keep attacking them. A setting can shape a plot by making readers expect certain events.
Setting shapes how characters appear
How does the cold change the way the two men look?
Result: Their faces are so coated with frozen breath that "their faces were not discernible," which gives them "the seeming of ghostly masques" (paragraph 3). The setting hides who they are, so at first the reader sees them only as small figures in the cold, not as two separate people.
Name, quote, link. Model the three moves with the second example: name the two elements (setting and plot); quote the words that connect them, with the paragraph number; link them with a cause-and-effect sentence. Give the frame from Diagram 1: "Because the setting is ___, the character ___, which leads to ___." Remind students that the arrows can point the other way too: a character's choice can push the plot forward, and an event can change a character (the lower arrows in Diagram 1).
Guided Practice15 minutes
Set the scene: after the opening, the men march for hours in silence. As the short day fades, they hear a cry behind them, then another, then an answering cry. The next passage begins right after. The man at the front is Henry; Bill walks at the back. Words to know: comrade (companion), evinced no inclination (showed no wish), grub (food), hides (skins), cut up (acted wild), reiterated dispassionately (repeated calmly) and positiveness (certainty). The men speak in the dialect (the everyday way of speaking of one group or place) of northern trail workers, so "I ain't seen" means "I haven't seen."
1“They’re after us, Bill,” said the man at the front.
2His voice sounded hoarse and unreal, and he had spoken with apparent effort.
3“Meat is scarce,” answered his comrade. “I ain’t seen a rabbit sign for days.”
4Thereafter they spoke no more, though their ears were keen for the hunting-cries that continued to rise behind them.
5At the fall of darkness they swung the dogs into a cluster of spruce trees on the edge of the waterway and made a camp. The coffin, at the side of the fire, served for seat and table. The wolf-dogs, clustered on the far side of the fire, snarled and bickered among themselves, but evinced no inclination to stray off into the darkness.
6“Seems to me, Henry, they’re stayin’ remarkable close to camp,” Bill commented.
7Henry, squatting over the fire and settling the pot of coffee with a piece of ice, nodded. Nor did he speak till he had taken his seat on the coffin and begun to eat.
8“They know where their hides is safe,” he said. “They’d sooner eat grub than be grub. They’re pretty wise, them dogs.”
9Bill shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know.”
10His comrade looked at him curiously. “First time I ever heard you say anything about their not bein’ wise.”
11“Henry,” said the other, munching with deliberation the beans he was eating, “did you happen to notice the way them dogs kicked up when I was a-feedin’ ’em?”
12“They did cut up more’n usual,” Henry acknowledged.
13“How many dogs ’ve we got, Henry?”
14“Six.”
15“Well, Henry . . . ” Bill stopped for a moment, in order that his words might gain greater significance. “As I was sayin’, Henry, we’ve got six dogs. I took six fish out of the bag. I gave one fish to each dog, an’, Henry, I was one fish short.”
16“You counted wrong.”
17“We’ve got six dogs,” the other reiterated dispassionately. “I took out six fish. One Ear didn’t get no fish. I came back to the bag afterward an’ got ’m his fish.”
18“We’ve only got six dogs,” Henry said.
19“Henry,” Bill went on. “I won’t say they was all dogs, but there was seven of ’m that got fish.”
20Henry stopped eating to glance across the fire and count the dogs.
21“There’s only six now,” he said.
22“I saw the other one run off across the snow,” Bill announced with cool positiveness. “I saw seven.”
Jack London, White Fang, Part I, chapter I, "The Trail of the Meat" (the first camp) (1906). Public domain (published 1906). Source text.
Build a because-chain with the class for paragraphs 1-6. For each link, pairs name the two elements and find the words that connect them:
Setting to plot. Bill explains the cries: "Meat is scarce," and "I ain't seen a rabbit sign for days" (paragraph 3). Teacher note: because the frozen land has almost no small animals left, the wolves are starving, and starving wolves follow the only moving food in sight. The setting causes the chase.
Plot to characters. After the cries begin, "they spoke no more, though their ears were keen for the hunting-cries" (paragraph 4). Teacher note: the chase changes how the men act; they stop talking and listen.
Setting to characters. At camp, the wolf-dogs "evinced no inclination to stray off into the darkness" (paragraph 5), and Bill notices "they're stayin' remarkable close to camp" (paragraph 6). Teacher note: the dark beyond the firelight, and what hunts in it, keeps even the dogs near the fire.
Show Diagram 2, which puts the chain in one column. Ask: which link would break if the land were full of rabbits? (The first one, and every link after it.) Pairs then write the whole chain as two sentences that use "because" at least twice, and read them to another pair. Leave paragraphs 7-22 for the quiz.
Independent Practice15 minutes
Students read the opening of chapter II of Heidi on their own. Heidi is a young orphan. Her aunt Deta has just brought her up a mountain in Switzerland to live with her grandfather, whom the villagers call the Alm-Uncle; the Alm (also called the Alp) is the high mountain pasture where his hut stands. Deta has now left. On the climb, Heidi pulled off her heavy shawl and extra dresses to run with the goats, and her "things" are that bundle of clothes. Words to know: goat-shed (a small barn for goats), penetrating (sharp, seeing deeply), light-footed (quick and nimble), hayloft (the space under a roof where hay is stored), fragrant (sweet-smelling) and cosy (the British spelling of cozy). The paragraph marked [...] is cut in the middle: in the left-out part, the grandfather shows Heidi his cupboard.
1After Deta had disappeared, the Uncle sat down again on the bench, blowing big clouds of smoke out of his pipe. He did not speak, but kept his eyes fastened on the ground. In the meantime Heidi looked about her, and discovering the goat-shed, peeped in. Nothing could be seen inside. Searching for some more interesting thing, she saw the three old fir-trees behind the hut. Here the wind was roaring through the branches and the tree-tops were swaying to and fro. Heidi stood still to listen. After the wind had ceased somewhat, she walked round the hut back to her grandfather. She found him in exactly the same position, and planting herself in front of the old man, with arms folded behind her back, she gazed at him. The grandfather, looking up, saw the child standing motionless before him. "What do you want to do now?" he asked her.
2"I want to see what's in the hut," replied Heidi.
3"Come then," and with that the grandfather got up and entered the cottage.
4"Take your things along," he commanded.
5"I do not want them any more," answered Heidi.
6The old man, turning about, threw a penetrating glance at her. The child's black eyes were sparkling in expectation of all the things to come. "She is not lacking in intelligence," he muttered to himself. Aloud he added: "Why don't you need them any more?"
7"I want to go about like the light-footed goats!"
8[...] After looking around attentively in the room, she asked, "Where am I going to sleep, grandfather?"
9"Wherever you want to," he replied. That suited Heidi exactly. She peeped into all the corners of the room and looked at every little nook to find a cosy place to sleep. Beside the old man's bed she saw a ladder. Climbing up, she arrived at a hayloft, which was filled with fresh and fragrant hay. Through a tiny round window she could look far down into the valley.
Johanna Spyri, translated by Elisabeth P. Stork, Heidi, chapter II, "With the Grandfather" (opening) (1880; this edition 1919). Public domain (published 1919). Source text.
On the handout, students (1) list three details of the mountain setting, with paragraph numbers; (2) write one because-chain of at least two links that starts with the setting and ends with something Heidi says or does; (3) write one sentence about an arrow that goes the other way, from a character to the plot or to another character. The quiz uses this passage and the two White Fang passages.
Closure5-10 minutes
Exit ticket: (1) Explain the difference between describing a setting and analyzing it, in one sentence. (2) Name one arrow from Diagram 1 you found in Heidi and quote the words that show it.
Teacher note on language and content: London wrote in 1906 and gives Bill and Henry the rough speech of trail workers ("I ain't seen," "them dogs," "they was"); treat it as dialect that helps build the setting, not as an error to copy in formal writing. The box on the sled is a coffin holding a dead traveler, which some students may find upsetting; the book never shows the death itself. Heidi is a translation from German, so a few words are British ("cosy") or old-fashioned. Keep the authors' words as printed.
For homework: students read two parts of chapter VII of Heidi, printed below. Deta has taken Heidi from the mountain to Frankfurt, a large city in Germany, to live in the rich Sesemann family's house as a companion for Clara, a girl who uses a wheelchair. Miss Rottenmeier is the strict housekeeper in charge of the girls. Heidi arrived the evening before. In the paragraphs marked [...], Heidi meets Clara at breakfast; then, during her first lesson with the tutor, there is a crash: the table-cover, books, papers and a stream of ink are on the floor, and Heidi has run out of the room. Words to know: spacious (large, roomy), cretonne (a heavy printed cotton cloth), wash-stand (a small table holding a basin and jug for washing), in vain (without success), resign herself (give up and accept it), hailed (greeted), perplexity (confusion) and devastation (a scene of great damage).
1When Heidi opened her eyes next morning, she did not know where she was. She found herself on a high white bed in a spacious room. Looking around she observed long white curtains before the windows, several chairs, and a sofa covered with cretonne; in a corner she saw a wash-stand with many curious things standing on it.
2Suddenly Heidi remembered all the happenings of the previous day. Jumping out of bed, she dressed in a great hurry. She was eager to look at the sky and the ground below, as she had always done at home. What was her disappointment when she found that the windows were too high for her to see anything except the walls and windows opposite. Trying to open them, she turned from one to the other, but in vain. The poor child felt like a little bird that is placed in a glittering cage for the first time. At last she had to resign herself, and sat down on a low stool, thinking of the melting snow on the slopes and the first flowers of spring that she had hailed with such delight.
[...]
3When Miss Rottenmeier went down-stairs to look for the child, she saw her standing at the open door, looking down the street.
4"What are you doing here? How can you run away like that?" scolded Miss Rottenmeier.
5"I heard the fir-trees rustle, but I can't see them and do not hear them any more," replied Heidi, looking in great perplexity down the street. The noise of the passing carriage had reminded her of the roaring of the south-wind on the Alp.
6"Fir-trees? What nonsense! We are not in a wood. Come with me now to see what you have done." When Heidi saw the devastation that she had caused, she was greatly surprised, for she had not noticed it in her hurry.
7"This must never happen again," said the lady sternly. "You must sit quiet at your lessons; if you get up again I shall tie you to your chair. Do you hear me?"
Johanna Spyri, translated by Elisabeth P. Stork, Heidi, chapter VII, "Miss Rottenmeier Has an Uncomfortable Day" (two parts) (1880; this edition 1919). Public domain (published 1919). Source text.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give a three-column because-chain chart (cause, words from the text, effect) with the first row of the camp scene filled in
Read the Heidi passage aloud with them and stop after paragraphs 1, 6 and 9 to ask "What is the place like here? What does Heidi do?"
Let them build chains of two links before moving to three
For Advanced Students
Ask them to find a place in the camp scene where the same setting affects Bill and Henry differently, and explain what that difference suggests about each man
Have them rewrite paragraph 1 of the White Fang opening as a mild spring day and explain which later events in the chapter could no longer happen
Ask them to name a novel or film they know in which moving a character to a new setting drives the plot, and map it on Diagram 1
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Check that each answer names two elements and explains how one affects the other, instead of only describing the setting. Look for exact quotations with paragraph numbers, and for linking words (because, so, which leads to) that make the cause and effect clear. Stronger answers follow a chain through more than one link, notice arrows that point from characters back to the plot, and see that the same setting can affect two characters in different ways. Watch for answers that stop at "the setting is cold and scary," and for claims the passage does not support, such as saying the men are lost.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Setting Swap
15 minPairs
Pairs move the camp scene from White Fang into a different setting and work out what would change. Changing one element and watching the others move is the quickest way to see that the elements interact.
The Setting Cards
A spring meadow full of rabbits, with long daylight
A warm cabin in a mining town, with neighbors next door
The same frozen river, but at noon under a bright sun
The same frozen river at night, but the sled is loaded with fish and meat
Procedure
Each pair draws one card and rereads paragraphs 1-6 of the camp scene
Pairs answer three questions for their new setting: Would the wolves still follow? Would the dogs still stay close to the fire? Would the men still stop talking and listen?
For each answer, pairs quote the words in the original that their answer depends on, for example "Meat is scarce" (paragraph 3) or "stray off into the darkness" (paragraph 5)
Pairs with the same card compare answers, then report one change to the class
Notes for the teacher: card 1 removes the hunger that starts the chase; card 2 removes both the hunger and the isolation; card 3 removes the darkness, so the dogs have less reason to crowd the fire; card 4 keeps the cold and the dark but adds the smell of food, which would draw a starving pack closer, not keep it away
Discussion Questions
Which card changed the most? Which single detail of the setting did it remove?
Card 4 keeps the danger and even increases it. What does that show about which detail of the setting matters most in this scene?
Could the same story events happen in a setting on your card? What would the writer have to add?
Modification
For students who need support, use only cards 1 and 3, and give the three questions as a fill-in chart with the original answer already written in the first column.
2
Arrow Sort
15 minGroups of 3
Groups sort 8 short story-event cards onto the four arrows of Diagram 1. The events are from invented stories written for this page, so students focus on the kind of link, not on remembering a text.
The Cards
A flood washes out the only bridge, so the twins must spend the night at a stranger's farm.
The tiny apartment has no room to be alone, so Leo grows short-tempered with his brothers.
Dev lies about finding the lost wallet, so the principal questions the wrong student.
Losing the championship game makes the boastful team captain quieter and kinder.
In the silent library, Ana's loud sneeze makes everyone stare, and she hides behind a bookshelf in embarrassment.
The desert heat uses up the travelers' water, and they have to turn back before they reach the town.
Grace decides to follow the strange light into the woods, and the adventure begins.
After a fire destroys the family store, Mr. Ortiz becomes much more careful with money.
Procedure
Groups place each card on one arrow of a large copy of Diagram 1 and write the linking word (so, because, makes) on a sticky note beside it
Each group picks one card that could fit on two arrows and explains both readings
Answer key for the teacher: setting to plot, cards 1 and 6; setting to characters, cards 2 and 5; characters to plot, cards 3 and 7; plot to characters, cards 4 and 8. Card 5 also has a small plot step (she hides), which makes a good discussion card
Discussion Questions
Which cards were hardest to place, and why?
Pick one card and add a second link to it, making a chain of two arrows.
Which arrow did you see in the White Fang opening, and where?
Variation
Have each student write a ninth card for a partner to place, drawn from a book the class has read this year.
3
Stage the Camp
10 minPairs
RL.7.3 covers dramas as well as stories. Pairs turn the start of the camp scene into the opening of a short play, which makes them decide exactly which parts of the setting the audience must see or hear for the dialogue to make sense.
Procedure
Explain that stage directions are the notes in a play script, usually printed in italics and in parentheses, that describe the setting and tell actors what to do
Pairs write stage directions of 3-5 sentences for paragraphs 5-6 of the camp scene: time, place, light, sounds and where the dogs and the box are
They then copy Bill's line "Seems to me, Henry, they're stayin' remarkable close to camp" (paragraph 6) and circle each part of their stage directions that the line depends on
Model for the teacher: (Night. A frozen river with spruce trees along its edge. A small fire. On one side of it, a long wooden box. On the other side, the dogs snarl and crowd close to the flames. Far off, a cry rises and fades.) Bill's line depends on the dark, the fire and the dogs' position
Discussion Questions
Which detail of the setting did every pair include? Why is it necessary?
A novel can describe the Wild for a whole paragraph. How must a play show the same setting instead?
Variation
Pairs perform their scene for another pair, who must identify the setting from the stage directions and one line of dialogue alone.
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
2 diagrams
Diagram 1: How Setting, Characters and Plot Act on Each Other
The three story elements in this lesson and the four links between them, each written as a question. Answering a question with a quotation from the text turns a description of the setting into an analysis of how the elements interact.
Diagram 2: A Because-Chain in the Camp Scene
The chain built in Guided Practice from paragraphs 1-5 of the camp scene in White Fang. The frozen land's lack of food starts the chase, and the chase and the dark change what the men and the dogs do.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
RL.7.3 Homework: Heidi in the City
Directions: Read the two parts of chapter VII of Heidi at the end of the lesson plan (in Closure). Its paragraphs are numbered 1-7. Answer in complete sentences, put every quotation in quotation marks, and give its paragraph number. For Part 3, you will also need the Heidi passage from Independent Practice.
Part 1: Reading the City Setting (Problems 1-2)
List three details of the room Heidi wakes up in (paragraph 1). Then explain what Heidi wanted to do as soon as she was dressed, and what in the setting stopped her. Quote the words that tell you.
The narrator says Heidi "felt like a little bird that is placed in a glittering cage for the first time" (paragraph 2). Explain what this comparison shows about how the house affects her. Why might the translator have chosen the word "glittering"?
Part 2: How the Setting Moves the Plot (Problems 3-4)
Explain the chain of events that leads from a noise in the street to Miss Rottenmeier's warning in paragraph 7. Use the word "because" at least twice, and quote paragraph 5.
Miss Rottenmeier answers, "Fir-trees? What nonsense! We are not in a wood." (paragraph 6). How do Heidi and Miss Rottenmeier experience the same street differently? Predict one problem this difference could cause later in the story, and explain your prediction.
Part 3: Comparing Two Settings (Problems 5-6)
Compare the window of the hayloft on the mountain (Independent Practice passage, paragraph 9) with the windows of the Frankfurt room (paragraph 2). How does each window shape what Heidi can do and how she feels?
Write a paragraph of 5-7 sentences answering: How does the Frankfurt setting shape both Heidi's character and the plot of this scene? Use at least three quotations with paragraph numbers, and include at least one link that goes from a character to the plot.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
No Credit (0 pts)
Setting Details
Accurate details of time, place and conditions, quoted with paragraph numbers
Accurate details without quotations or paragraph numbers
Wrong or missing details
Setting and Character
Explains how the setting changes what a character does, thinks or feels, with evidence
Names a feeling or action without linking it to the setting
No link to a character
Setting and Plot
A because-chain of two or more correct links that ends in an event
One correct link, or a chain with a gap
Retells events with no cause and effect
Comparison and Prediction
Compares the two settings and makes a prediction the text supports
A comparison or a prediction with little support
Missing or unsupported
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
Questions 3, 4 and 15 use the White Fang opening in Direct Instruction; questions 5-9, 16 and 20 use the camp scene in Guided Practice; questions 10-14, 17 and 18 use the Heidi passage in Independent Practice; question 19 uses both the camp scene and the Heidi passage. Questions 1 and 2 are about story elements in general. Paragraph numbers restart in each passage. Your score updates as you answer, and Reset quiz clears everything.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which sentence analyzes how two elements of a story interact, instead of only naming one of them?
Answer: B
Choice B links two elements with a cause and an effect: the snowstorm (setting) causes the family to shelter with strangers (plot). Choice A only describes the setting. Choice C only describes a character. Choice D only names the parts of a plot, with no link to another element.
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Read these stage directions from a play written for this quiz: (A lighthouse on a rocky island, at night. Rain beats on the one window. The great lamp at the top has gone dark, and the supply boat lies broken at the dock.) What problem is this setting most likely to create for the lighthouse keeper?
Answer: A
The dark lamp, the rocks and the storm point to danger for ships, and the broken boat means the keeper cannot leave, so the setting creates the conflict in Choice A. Choice B ignores the storm and the dark lamp. Choice C is contradicted: the lamp "has gone dark." Choice D is contradicted: the boat "lies broken at the dock."
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In paragraph 1 of the White Fang opening, the trees "seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light." How does this detail prepare the reader for the plot?
Answer: D
"Ominous" means threatening, and trees leaning together in the "fading light" feel like a trap closing, so the setting prepares the reader for danger. Choice A reverses the mood of "black and ominous." Choice B misreads the frost being "stripped by a recent wind" as melting. Choice C has no support: nothing says the men are lost.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In paragraph 2, the narrator lists what the Wild does: it freezes the water, drives the sap out of the trees, and "most ferociously and terribly of all" crushes man. Why does the list end with people?
Answer: A
Ending the list with "most ferociously and terribly of all" makes people the Wild's main enemy, which raises the danger for the two living men. Choice B is contradicted in paragraph 2: two men still "toiled" at the front and rear of the sled; only the third man's "toil was over." Choice C reverses "most ferociously." Choice D confuses who acts: the Wild, not the men, freezes the water.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In the camp scene, Henry is "settling the pot of coffee with a piece of ice" (paragraph 7). What does this small detail show about the setting?
Answer: C
Even making coffee is done with ice taken from the frozen land, so the setting shapes the most ordinary actions at camp. Choice A turns a practical act into a taste the text never mentions. Choice B reverses the setting. Choice D is contradicted: Henry is "squatting over the fire."
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
"The coffin, at the side of the fire, served for seat and table" (paragraph 5). What does this sentence suggest about how the setting shapes the men's lives?
Answer: B
On a frozen river there is no furniture, so the men sit and eat on the only large object they have, even though it holds a dead man; the setting leaves them no choice. Choice A judges the men without evidence. Choice C adds furniture the text never mentions. Choice D is contradicted by the opening, where the box holds "a third man whose toil was over."
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Bill says, "Oh, I don't know," about the dogs being wise, and Henry answers, "First time I ever heard you say anything about their not bein' wise" (paragraphs 9-10). What does this exchange suggest?
Answer: D
Henry looks at Bill "curiously" because this is the "first time" Bill has doubted the dogs, which suggests the hunting pack and the night are changing Bill. Choice A overstates "curiously" as anger. Choice B is contradicted by "first time." Choice C has no support in these paragraphs.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Henry says the dogs stay close to camp because "They'd sooner eat grub than be grub" (paragraph 8). What does he mean?
Answer: C
"Grub" means food: the dogs would rather eat food than become food for what is out in the dark, so the danger in the setting explains where they stay. Choice A gives a reason Henry never states. Choice B takes "eat grub" too literally and ignores "be grub." Choice D reverses where the dogs want to be.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
After Bill reports that seven animals got fish, how do the two men respond differently to the same camp?
Answer: A
Bill insists, "I saw seven" (paragraph 22), while Henry answers, "You counted wrong" (paragraph 16) and "We've only got six dogs" (paragraph 18). The same dark camp makes one man watchful and leaves the other doubtful. Choice B invents plans neither man makes. Choice C reverses them: Bill is the serious one. Choice D invents blame the text never gives.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In paragraph 1 of the Heidi passage, the wind is "roaring through the branches" of the fir-trees. What does Heidi's response show about her?
Answer: B
The text states, "Heidi stood still to listen" (paragraph 1), and she waits until the wind has "ceased somewhat" before walking on. The mountain setting catches her attention and holds it. Choice A invents fear; she walks calmly "round the hut." Choice C is contradicted by her stopping to listen. Choice D adds a plan the passage never mentions.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
What is the grandfather doing when Heidi comes back from exploring outside the hut?
Answer: D
The text states, "She found him in exactly the same position" (paragraph 1), still on the bench where he sat down after Deta left. Choice A takes the goat-shed from the same paragraph, but Heidi, not the grandfather, looks into it. Choice B takes the hayloft from paragraph 9, and Heidi finds it herself later. Choice C confuses him with Deta, who "had disappeared."
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Heidi says she does not want her things "any more" and wants "to go about like the light-footed goats" (paragraphs 5-7). What does this show about how the mountain setting is shaping her?
Answer: C
On the climb Heidi ran with the goats, and now she wants to live "like the light-footed goats" (paragraph 7), free of the heavy bundle of clothes. The mountain and its animals are shaping what she wants. Choice A reverses her wish. Choice B invents a complaint about clothes. Choice D takes the goats too literally.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
The grandfather "threw a penetrating glance at her" and muttered, "She is not lacking in intelligence" (paragraph 6). How is Heidi affecting her grandfather here?
Answer: A
A "penetrating" glance is a sharp, searching look, and his muttered words show he is impressed; a character is changing another character. Choice B has no support. Choice C misreads "muttered" as laughter. Choice D describes how he acted at the start of paragraph 1, before Heidi spoke to him.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
When the grandfather tells Heidi she can sleep "Wherever you want to," the narrator says, "That suited Heidi exactly" (paragraph 9). What does this suggest about Heidi?
Answer: B
Right after these words, Heidi "peeped into all the corners of the room and looked at every little nook" (paragraph 9), so the freedom to choose suits her curious, independent nature. Choice A reverses the meaning of "suited." Choice C is contradicted by her busy search. Choice D has no support: she is pleased, not upset.
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
In paragraph 3 of the White Fang opening, the men are "unawed and indomitable" and are called "puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure." Explain how this paragraph shows the characters pushing back against the setting, and what that suggests about the plot. Cite one quotation.
Model answer: The setting is huge and deadly, but the men refuse to be frightened by it. The narrator calls them "puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure" (paragraph 3): they are small compared with the land, yet they keep going, "pitting themselves against the might of a world." Because they will not give up, the plot will be a long struggle between the men and the Wild. Rubric: 2 points for explaining that the characters resist the setting and linking that to a struggle in the plot, with a quotation; 1 point for one of the two links; 0 for a description of the men only.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Bill is sure there were seven animals at feeding time, but Henry counts only six dogs. What can you infer about the seventh animal, and how does the setting make this mystery possible? Cite two details from the camp scene.
Model answer: The seventh animal was probably a hungry wolf from the pack that crept into camp for a fish. Bill says, "I won't say they was all dogs" (paragraph 19), and he "saw the other one run off across the snow" (paragraph 22). The setting makes this possible: the men make camp "at the fall of darkness" (paragraph 5), so the dogs are fed in the dark, when an animal can slip in from the dark and out again across the open snow, and the land is so empty of food ("Meat is scarce," paragraph 3) that a wolf would take the risk. Rubric: 2 points for a supported inference and a clear link to the setting, with two details; 1 point for the inference or the link alone; 0 for no evidence.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
Explain how the mountain setting shapes Heidi in the chapter II passage. Use two details of the setting and two things Heidi says or does, with paragraph numbers.
Model answer: The mountain is full of sounds and open spaces, and it makes Heidi curious and eager to be free. Details of the setting: the wind is "roaring through the branches" of the fir-trees (paragraph 1), and the hayloft is "filled with fresh and fragrant hay" (paragraph 9). Heidi's responses: she "stood still to listen" (paragraph 1), and she says, "I want to go about like the light-footed goats!" (paragraph 7). Because the place is so open and alive, she drops her old things and explores every corner. Rubric: 2 points for two setting details and two responses linked by cause and effect; 1 point for details or responses without a clear link; 0 for no evidence.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
In the chapter II passage, how does Heidi change what her grandfather does? Compare how he acts at the start of paragraph 1 with how he acts later, and cite two pieces of evidence.
Model answer: At first the grandfather is silent and still: "He did not speak, but kept his eyes fastened on the ground" (paragraph 1). After Heidi plants herself in front of him and asks to see the hut, he gets up and leads her in (paragraph 3), studies her with "a penetrating glance" (paragraph 6), and lets her choose where to sleep (paragraph 9). A new character in his home is drawing him out of his silence, a character-to-character link that will move the plot. Rubric: 2 points for a clear before-and-after contrast with two cited pieces; 1 point for one piece or a contrast without evidence; 0 for no change described.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Compare the two settings in this lesson's quiz passages: the camp in White Fang and the grandfather's hut in Heidi. For each one, write a sentence explaining how the setting shapes the plot, with a quotation. Then write one sentence on the biggest difference.
Model answer: In White Fang, the frozen land has so little food that a hungry pack follows the sled and creeps into camp, so the setting creates danger: "Meat is scarce" (camp scene, paragraph 3). In Heidi, the open mountain invites Heidi to explore, so the setting leads to her choosing her own bed in the hayloft, where "she could look far down into the valley" (Heidi passage, paragraph 9). The biggest difference is that London's setting works against the characters, while Spyri's setting welcomes Heidi and draws out her curiosity. Rubric: 2 points for two accurate, quoted setting-to-plot links and a clear difference; 1 point for one link or a difference with no evidence; 0 for description only.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Find one link in the camp scene that goes from a character to the plot: a choice or action by a character that makes something happen next. Explain it with one quotation and a because-sentence.
Model answer: Bill counts carefully at feeding time: "I took six fish out of the bag. I gave one fish to each dog, an', Henry, I was one fish short" (paragraph 15). Because Bill counts the fish, he discovers there was an extra animal, which starts the mystery of the seventh "dog" and an argument between the two men. Rubric: 2 points for a character's action, a quotation and a correct effect on the plot; 1 point for an action and effect without a quotation, or a quotation with no effect; 0 for a setting detail instead of a character's action.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
06
Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does RL.7.3 mean?
It means seventh graders analyze how the parts of a story or play affect each other. The standard names setting as its example: students explain how where and when a story happens shapes what the characters do and what events take place, and they also trace how characters' choices move the plot. The key word is interact: a change in one element causes a change in another.
What are the elements of a story in RL.7.3?
The elements are the main building blocks of a story or drama: setting, characters and plot, with the plot's conflict. Some teachers add point of view and theme. RL.7.3 does not require a fixed list; it asks students to pick particular elements in a particular text and show how they work on each other.
How is RL.7.3 different from RL.6.3?
RL.6.3 asks students to describe how a plot unfolds in episodes and how characters respond or change. RL.7.3 moves from describing to analyzing connections: why the characters act as they do and what in the story causes the events, with setting as the model case. A grade 6 answer can retell; a grade 7 answer explains cause and effect between elements.
What comes after RL.7.3 in grade 8?
RL.8.3 narrows the focus to how particular lines of dialogue or incidents propel the action, reveal a character or provoke a decision. The cause-and-effect chains students build for RL.7.3 are the same tool, now aimed at a single line or event. In high school, RL.9-10.3 follows complex characters as they develop and advance the plot.
What does it look like when setting shapes the characters or plot?
It looks like a because-chain that starts with the place. In the opening of White Fang, the frozen land has almost no small animals left, so a starving wolf pack follows the men's sled, and the men stop talking to listen for it. Take away the cold and hunger, and those events and reactions no longer make sense. That test, asking what would change in a different setting, is a quick way to check an analysis.
Does RL.7.3 apply to plays as well as stories?
Yes, the standard says "story or drama." In a play the setting usually appears in the stage directions (the italic notes that describe the scene and tell actors what to do) and in what the characters say about their surroundings. Students analyze the same links, for example how a locked room or a storm outside forces the characters into a conflict.
What mistakes do students make with RL.7.3?
A common mistake is describing the setting in detail and stopping there, without saying what it causes. Another is treating every link as one-way, from setting to people, and missing how characters' choices push the plot or change other characters. Students also sometimes claim a link the text does not support; asking "which words show that?" after each claim keeps the analysis tied to the passage.
Why use White Fang and Heidi to teach RL.7.3?
Both books make setting do visible work, and both are in the public domain, so the passages can be printed in full. London describes the frozen North as an enemy that hunts the characters. Spyri moves one girl from a mountain pasture to a city house, so students can watch a new setting change the same character. Seeing a setting that fights the characters next to one that welcomes them shows that setting can shape a story in more than one way.
How is RL.7.3 assessed?
It is usually assessed with a literary passage followed by questions that ask how one element affects another, often in two parts: choose the best explanation, then choose the evidence that supports it. Short written responses ask students to explain a link with quotations. This lesson's quiz, homework and rubric follow the same pattern, and the rubric rewards a cause-and-effect link, not a description.
How can parents help with RL.7.3 at home?
Ask "what if" questions about a book or movie your child knows: What if this story happened in summer instead of winter, or in a city instead of a farm? What would the characters do differently, and which events could no longer happen? Answering those questions out loud is the same thinking RL.7.3 asks for in writing.
07
Related Standards
5 standards
These standards connect to RL.7.3: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Before this lesson
RL.6.3Prerequisite
Describe how a plot unfolds in episodes and how characters respond or change
Lesson coming soon
Alongside
RI.7.3Parallel
Analyze how individuals, events and ideas interact in an informational text
