Twenty-first-century students are easily able to transport themselves back in time via the Internet. If they want a sampling of the streets of London as it was a backdrop for Dickens’ characters, pictures and period videos are only a mouse click away. Encourage your students to check the Web, but only as research to how they might fully immerse themselves in the setting of their characters. Consider having them re-create a favorite city or setting back in time. Perhaps you can have them dress the parts of King Arthur’s court, feast on chocolate right out of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" or imagine life on "Little House on the Prairie" by giving up some modern amenities.
Stage actors are acutely aware of the importance of setting. Help your students understand, as well, by having them create sets to match literary works. Plays are particularly apropos for such artistic effort. Consider "West Side Story" or Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” but also think of scenes your students might re-create from stories they know and love such as “Harry Potter” or “Twilight.” Perhaps they can tumble down a rabbit hole like Alice as they turn your classroom into a fanciful world, or cast out to sea like Harvey from "Captains Courageous." Have them consider the mood they hope to evoke and what unconventional tools they might use to create memorable scenes in spite of limited resources.
Welcome to a world where there is no pain or hunger or illness. Imagine a society with no war or hatred. Such is the setting for Lois Lowry’s “The Giver,” which winds up being much less desirable than a travel brochure might depict it. Choose edgy works and encourage your students to “sell” their setting. Perhaps they’ll offer up the merits of eternal life from “Tuck Everlasting,” or lure a few unsuspecting tourists onto the island of “Lord of the Flies.” Such an artistic endeavor can teach about setting, but also about propaganda and advertising and how often it actually appears outside of literary fiction.
One of the easiest -- and often most fun -- ways to teach students about setting is to take them to the locations where their books were set. Undisturbed scenes in nature are particularly effective in transporting students into an author’s setting and his psyche. You can choose to focus on writers from your own geographical area or re-create their settings. A park can stand in for Thoreau’s Walden Pond, and an early 20th century mansion can accurately reflect the opulence of the 1920s described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."