SHORT STORY ESSAY TEMPLATE
Aaargh! I have to do a response-to-text essay for a short story! What do I do?
Fear not, my child – help is at hand. Try this handy little template. I don’t guarantee success, because
that’s down to you, but the template is a useful place to start when setting out your essays. You’re
welcome!
Here’s a sample question: Describe an important setting in a short text you have read. Explain why
the setting is important.
PLAN! Think of the keywords in the question: describe, important, setting, explain, why. Brainstorm
or mindmap until you have three KEY aspects that answer the question, and example/quote to go
with each aspect and some techniques to help in your explanation.
INTRODUCTION
CONTEXT
PARAGRAPH
BODY
PARAGRAPH 1,
2, 3
SAMPLE BODY
PARAGRAPH
CONCLUSION
Make sure you use keywords from the question. Example: An important setting in the short
story _______________________ is ____________. It is important because it shows the idea of
__________________ (e.g., forgiveness). This is shown through various techniques, including
___________, ________________ and __________________.
A VERY SHORT paragraph giving some background that relates to the question you’re
answering – e.g., ___________________ is the most important setting in ____________________,
which tells the story of _______________.
This should follow the SEXY structure: a STATEMENT that describes an aspect of the
character/setting/idea etc that is important (e.g., “The setting of ________________ is shown
to be important because it showed that ________________________. Now EXPLAIN your
statement (E) – this means that you discuss your statement, explaining why it shows the
importance of the setting. Now, give an EXAMPLE from the text: “This is shown in the text
when _________________________________. You should use a quote or close reference to
support what you’re saying. This is the X part. Finally, give your reasons WHY (Y) this
example is relevant to the question or topic and use techniques to support your ideas..
This is a sample body paragraph following the SEXY structure from the poem The
Highwayman by Alfred Noyes:
The setting of the inn is important in the poem The Highwayman because it gives Bess, the
Landlord’s daughter, a clear view of the road that the man she loves will come riding down to
his death. (S) She knows that she is the bait that will lure him to certain doom and that she will
have to watch her lover die from her second floor bedroom. (E) This is shown in the lines
“There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.” (X) The technique of
parallel structure in the lines “death at every window/And hell at one dark window”
illustrates the setting as the place where the highwayman will meet his death and the use of
emotive language (“hell” and “death”) gives the reader a feeling of darkness and doom about
the setting. This shows the idea of forbidden love because the king’s men deliberately use a
setting the Highwayman trusts, together with the woman he loves, to entrap and kill him. (Y)
This just sums up what you have written, again using keywords from the question – e.g.,
“Therefore, in the text _____________________ an important setting is __________________.
The setting shows the idea of _______________________.” To make your essay more stylish,
you could consider a summary comment or concluding judgement. An example, using The
Highwayman, is “The powerful emotions caused by forbidden love in the poem have lasting
effects on the setting, which becomes haunted as a result of the events that happen there,
reminding us of the powerful memories contained in the places we pass through.”