On your own, check out this Prezi
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Now talk to your table partner:

Which of these terms have you heard of before?
Which do you feel confident about?

Why do we need/use these terms?
It's helpful to have a way to break down a story into its parts to be able to talk about what we like or dislike about it. It also helps us see how the story works or how the writer creates the effect it has. In most stories some of these elements are more important and have a bigger influence on the story.

Different Sources Disagree on the number of elements which is super annoying, I know
Some literary critics say 5, like the ones in the Prezi.
Others say the 5 are setting, plot, character, point of view, and theme.
Sometimes they add voice or style (which is what we've been looking at with the literary devices of diction (remember those, I hope?).

Bottom line is--it's important to know something about these elements of fiction, so you can be knowledgeable about an ART that is important to our being human- literature (and film).

It's not very important to classify EVERYTHING. Just like real life the definitions of these things blur, and artists are always trying to mess with our expectations. We want to be aware of how artists are messing with us, but we don't need to argue about whether a character can be a dynamic foil--although, literature nerds [like your English teachers] love to argue about this stuff and this kind of geekiness about any topic is AWESOME.

We'll focus on THREE to begin, using a familiar story as an example.
Take notes as you listen and contribute to a whole class discussion

Setting-

time and place of a story
social context
could be symbolic, historic, or imaginary (science-fiction or fantasy)

Plot-

Exposition
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action
Resolution

Character-

protagonist- central to the change and conflict of the story
antagonist- causes the main conflict with the protagonist
anti-hero-
static- doesn't change
dynamic- does change
foil- doesn't cause conflict but contrasts with the protagonist

MORE in depth
Now split up your small group, so each of the 3 below are covered. Take notes on your video and be ready to present what you learned to the others.

Setting, Dan Sato (a pretty cool person who used to teach at Shorewood)
Plot, Khan Academy- this one is funny and really helpful with an example
Character, Dan Sato again- stop at 5:13