Everything Underlined needs to be written in notes.

 Setting – time and place in which action occurs  Dialects – the distinct form of language as it is spoken from one geographical area or by a particular social or ethnic group  Imagery – descriptive words and phrases that a writer uses to recreate sensory experiences  Mood – feeling or atmosphere a writer creates for the reader  Description – writing that helps a reader to picture scenes, events, and characters

 What does the word “region” mean?  What do you think Regional Literature is?  Represents the speech, manners, habits, history, folklore, and beliefs of people in a specific geographical areas.

What type of people do you think live in each of the regions? How do they talk?

Key elements of setting in Regional Literature:  Geographical location – river, camp, house  Time – season, year, historical period  Jobs and daily activities of characters  Culture of characters – religious and moral beliefs and social and economic conditions

Two means of conveying setting that are commonly found in regional literature are the use of dialects—distinctive forms of language spoken in particular areas or by particular groups of people—and detailed descriptions of location. Read this example from Twain’s “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (page 684). “Rev. Leonidas W. H’m, Reverend Le— Well, there was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of ’49—or maybe it was the spring of ’50—I don’t recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn’t finished when he first come to the camp....” —Mark Twain, “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” What do you notice about the dialect used in this passage?

Now look at this description from Willa Cather’s “A Wagner Matinee” (page 718), in which the narrator recalls the Nebraska farm where he grew up. Notice the harshness and the lack of color in the setting described; both the landscape and the evidence of human habitation are black, pitted, and bare. I saw again the tall, naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress; the black pond where I had learned to swim, its margin pitted with sun-dried cattle tracks; the rain gullied clay banks about the naked house, the four dwarf ash seedlings where the dish-cloths were always hung to dry before the kitchen door. —Willa Cather, “A Wagner Matinee”

What feeling about life on the frontier do you get from the description? (What literary method is this referring to?) MOOD How could you rewrite the passage to change that feeling? (Now, what method is being referred to?) TONE You do not have to write the prompt in your notes, only your responses. I saw again the tall, naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress; the black pond where I had learned to swim, its margin pitted with sun-dried cattle tracks; the rain gullied clay banks about the naked house, the four dwarf ash seedlings where the dish-cloths were always hung to dry before the kitchen door. —Willa Cather, “A Wagner Matinee”