The Age of Innocence: Chapters 1 - 8

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Think about where you are while working right now on this lesson.

• How would you describe your surroundings?

Quickly jot down in a notebook or journal — that you will keep for this entire series of lessons — the description of everything surrounding you. Be as complete as possible. When you have finished your list or descriptive paragraph, take it into another room or outside and then re-read it. Try to picture in your mind only what you have included in the written description.

• Do you think it accurately captures the space in which you were working on the lesson?
• What other descriptions could have been included to make the image more precise?

Just as you tried to accurately describe your surroundings in your notes, authors try to create settings in their novels. It is important for a reader to be able to visualize a setting in a novel because settings often provide clues about the behaviors and attitudes of characters.

To learn more about the elements used to create a literary setting, read the following article. As you read, write down in your notebook the twelve components writers can use to create a setting. Read Discover the Basic Elements of Setting In a Story, by Courtney Carpenter (Writer's Digest), and take your notes. When you have finished, compare the notes to your initial description of your learning space. Go back to your description and label the different elements that you used in writing your description.

• Which of the twelve components did you use in your list?
• Which components did you omit?
• How would including the omitted components have changed or enhanced your initial description?

Edith Wharton, the author of The Age of Innocence, draws on her knowledge and firsthand experience of upper-class life in late nineteenth-century New York City to create the setting of her novel. Wharton creates precise settings in her writing because she is writing in a realistic style (a literary and artistic movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) to depict life as accurately as possible. Therefore, specific details are needed to create as accurate a portrayal of a scene as possible.

Now that you know how Wharton is approaching her writing through a realistic lens, read Chapters One through Eight in the novel. You will need to obtain a copy of The Age of Innocence. You can find one in a local library, bookstore, or you can read the online version of The Age of Innocence, from Project Gutenberg. You will use the same copy for all lessons in this series. As you read the first eight chapters, take notes on setting. Write down details that describe the different locations the characters inhabit and visit in New York City. Keep in mind the twelve components of setting as you take your notes. You will use these notes later in the Go! section activity.

When you have finished reading and taking notes, move on to the Got It? section to explore the information from the first eight chapters in more detail.