Teaching Setting? 12 High School Short Stories to Use
If we’re honest, we rarely prioritized setting when looking for high school short stories to use in our classrooms. This isn’t to say we never discussed it, but when there were so.many.things. our students struggled with, we were thrilled to have at least one literary device they could define and even identify without much help from us. One thing checked off the list.
But we came to realize that setting is still important, even exciting, to teach in high school. Because our students knew what it is and how to identify it, we could actually dive into the more complex work of talking about why setting matters, something we didn’t always get to do in-depth for more challenging literary devices.

While all stories have a setting and setting always matters (a story must happen somewhere and someplace, after all), not all stories have a setting that is worth discussing, and even fewer have settings that are thematically important, so we need to take some care when selecting middle and high school short stories we’d like to use to discuss setting.
Our most successful discussions of setting in middle and high school short stories happen when setting plays a key role. If the setting itself can almost be a character in the story, you’re on the right track. If it’s symbolic, reflecting key elements of the story back to the reader in some way, you’ve hit pay dirt. Maybe it brings with it a context that’s significant to understanding the work’s theme. Ding, ding, ding, you’ve found a winner.
After all, in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster argues that, when discussing geography, it’s all the things that come with a certain time or location that matter most. And it turns out, there are quite a few short stories that fit the bill.
12 Middle and High School Short Stories Helpful for Teaching Setting Meaningfully
“And of Clay Are We Created” by Isabel Allende
Allende’s short story is based on true events: on November 13, 1985, a volcano erupted in Colombia, causing deadly mudslides and the deaths of over 23,000 people. In Allende’s story, a little girl named Azucena is trapped in a mud pit, submerged up to her head, and the narrator’s boyfriend, a journalist, flies to the scene to report on events, eventually wading into the mud himself to help Azucena and, finally, to stay by her side as she takes her final breaths. Students were really intrigued by the story, interested (for once) in the outcome, which we always count as a win.
The setting plays a key role in the story, of course, given that the volcano and resulting mudslides cause the conflict that propels the story forward.
The mud serves as a symbol: as Rolf (the narrator’s boyfriend) connects with the young girl, he wrestles with his own grief from his traumatic past; in the end, he and Azucena “both were saved from despair, how they were freed from the clay, how they rose above the vultures and helicopters, how together they flew above the vast swamp of corruption and laments.”
Most importantly, the setting is significant because it traps this young girl despite the adults’ best efforts to save her, highlighting our helplessness in the face of natural disasters.
“Araby” by James Joyce
In Joyce’s coming-of-age story, a young boy growing up in Dublin, Ireland, has an enormous crush on his friend Mangan’s sister. He goes to the local bazaar to buy a gift for her, only to see a couple of teenagers flirting in a casual way that just doesn’t match the beautiful, romantic fantasy he has in his head. Disillusioned, he turns away from the bazaar in tears without a gift.
Juniors and seniors engage with the story more than you might expect, especially when they realize they’re only a few years removed from the narrator’s experience, and teenagers love to wax nostalgic about middle school romance.
The story works well for a variety of devices—plot, characterization, symbolism, biblical allusions. But the different settings the narrator visits mirror and deepen the contrast between his expectations and reality: his neighborhood is quiet, dark, and damp, but he sees the bazaar as an enchanted place where he can buy the girl he loves a bracelet. When he arrives to find the bazaar shutting down for the night, nothing like the magical place he imagined, his eyes fill with tears, and the classic “fall from innocence” story gains resonance.
“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin
To be honest, we forgot about this short story until we were going through our archives with setting in mind. It was in our sophomores’ textbook when we first started teaching, and while it was a little long for our struggling readers, it would be perfect for a lesson or unit focused on setting.
The narrator is a pilot on the spaceship Stardust, and when he senses there is a stowaway onboard the craft, he gears himself up to jettison the passenger according to Interstellar Regulations; after all, their ship carries just enough fuel to complete its mission, and the calculations leave no room for the added weight of a stowaway.
This reality becomes complicated, however, when the narrator discovers the stowaway is a young girl who just wanted to see her brother, a member of a government survey team on another planet. What will he do, when any decision he makes leads to death for someone?
The harsh realities of space play a significant role in the story’s plot, but they also highlight the cold nature of the decisions that must be made. Outer space has no room for compassion, and it’s this reality the characters must wrestle with throughout the story.
If your students really like this one, consider recommending The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm for middle schoolers and The Martian by Andy Weir for older readers—the classroom version may appeal to younger readers as well, but the original is heavy on profanity.
“The Destructors” by Graham Greene
Greene’s short story introduces us to the Wormsley Common Gang, a group of young boys in post-Blitz London who usually spend their time trying to get free bus rides, but one day decide to destroy their neighbor Old Misery’s house from the inside out. The old man has always been kind to the boys, but his house, built by famed architect Christopher Wren, symbolizes the old class structure that the boys see as an enemy, and the old man’s kindness belongs in a world they cannot relate to. As we watch the boys work to take the house down, we see an odd creativity in their efforts, even as they destroy.
This is a story that could not take place anywhere but post-Blitz London. The house sticks up from the rubble “like a man in a top hat,” a “beautiful” house “that belonged to a class world that you could still see parodied at the Wormsley Common Empire by a man wearing a top hat and a monocle, with a haw-haw accent.” These boys are assaulting not a house but the aging class structure of a society to which they do not belong, and it’s only through Greene’s description of the setting that we fully understand his purpose.
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
While we used it for its objective point of view, Hemingway’s short story about a young man and a girl contemplating an abortion while waiting for their train relies heavily on the symbolism of its setting. The couple sits at a train station across the valley from long white hills; their side of the valley is hot, dry, and brown. On the other side, however, “were fields of grain and trees,” and “The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.”
The significance of this couple sitting at a train station (one with only “two lines of rails”), caught between a barren landscape on one side and a fertile landscape on the other, as they discuss this momentous discussion makes for a rewarding analytical experience.
“Hunters in the Snow” by Tobias Wolff
We loved teaching Wolff’s story primarily for plot and characterization, but the setting plays an important role. Frank, Kenny, and Tub, “friends” in name more than behavior, set out on a hunting trip that goes disastrously wrong, particularly as the three exceptionally selfish men spend their time worrying more about their shifting alliances than anything else.
The stark landscape reinforces the cold, hostile relationship that exists between the characters. This is a set of relationships with no warmth or compassion, one with potentially fatal consequences, and the setting mirrors that.
“Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri’s short story is, at heart, about its narrator, Mr. Kapasi. Trapped in a humdrum existence, he allows himself a brief fantasy while giving a tour to the Das family, envisioning himself beginning a friendship with Mrs. Das in which they will exchange letters and he will get to live out his dream of becoming a translator between cultures rather than merely an interpreter at a local doctors’ office. When it becomes clear that the selfish and superficial Mrs. Das could never fulfill that fantasy, we watch his hopes slip away like the small slip of paper on which he wrote his address so they could send him pictures.
The contrast between Indian and American culture (the Das family is visiting India on vacation from America, though their parents live in India) is central to the story. Watching Mr. Kapasi interact with his beloved culture as the Das family acts like typical American tourists despite their own connections to India, highlights the utter disparity between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das, and it deepens the sadness we feel on his behalf as he indulges in a fantasy only to watch it slip away. We, after all, are far more aware than he is that Mrs. Das will never be capable of reciprocating the relationship he longs for.
“Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer
While not technically a short story, Krakauer’s account of the storm that killed eight climbers on Mount Everest on May 10–11, 1996, sure reads like one (and, honestly, we taught it like one).
Setting is key in Krakauer’s account; not only could this story not have taken place anywhere else or at any other time, but the setting is the antagonist these men and women struggle against. When we teach conflict to our students, we teach them that one of the possibilities for an external conflict is man vs. nature, and Krakauer’s article is a prime example of the concept.
The article would also fit nicely into a unit exploring nature’s indifference in the face of human tragedy, making it a good pair with both “And of Clay Are We Created” and “The Cold Equations” above.
“Notes from a Bottle” by James Stevenson
Stevenson’s short story, supposedly a collection of notes found in a bottle on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, chronicles a devastating flood rising through the streets of New York City. Residents are trapped inside tall apartment buildings as the waters rise and rise; what started as a party atmosphere gives way to contemplative silence as the waters continue to rise.
Because the story ends without telling us exactly what happened to the people in the apartment building, our textbook included it as an example of ambiguity, but it would work well for a lesson on setting. The contrast between the New York City we’re used to and the rising flood water is a crucial element to the story and leads our imaginations to run wild with questions about how the people found themselves in this situation. It’s eerily reminiscent of the silent streets of New York City during the early days of the pandemic, and in an age where climate change is on our minds, it poses interesting questions for discussion.
“The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane
We taught Crane’s short story (based on a real-life incident in Crane’s life) for several years as part of our theme unit in AP Lit. It tells the story of four men—an injured captain, an oiler, a correspondent, and a cook—lost at sea in a rowboat. They try to keep each other’s morale up as they keep rowing, hopefully toward safety, despite the vast expanses of water that surround them. While the length makes this one a challenge for students, it’s an excellent lesson in perseverance!
Again, the setting plays a crucial role in the conflict (and it’s described vividly: so much gray). It’s also directly relevant to the story’s theme and would pair nicely with several of the stories mentioned above. Ultimately, the story highlights the utter disinterest nature has in an individual human’s plight, and as we watch the men battle trial after trial, disappointed hope after disappointed hope, nature’s indifference is abundantly clear.
It would also make a great pairing with Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken or Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, novels with similar situations that emphasize different themes.
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
We like to teach Faulkner’s short story when we’re reviewing plot structure, especially because of its fragmented chronology, but it is a great example of Thomas Foster’s point in How to Read Literature Like a Professor that geography matters, not always because the landscape is symbolic but because the time and place bring with it strong associations with a specific culture.
Miss Emily Grierson is the last representative of the old South, decaying in the face of modernity but refusing to let go of her old ways as the world changes around her, much to her neighbors’ frustration. This is not a story that could have taken place in, say, California, and Faulkner makes the connection explicit in his opening paragraphs when he describes Miss Emily’s house, the last standing “big house” among the encroaching gas stations and businesses. By placing the story in this specific context, Faulkner gives it more substance than merely a creepy story about an old lady who won’t let go of her lost love.
“Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?” by Tim O’Brien (excerpt from Going After Cacciato)
We landed on this excerpt from Going After Cacciato in our textbook while searching for texts that might appeal to our students. Paul Berlin is marching to the sea at night with his fellow soldiers after his first day in combat in Vietnam, where he watched Billy Boy die. As he marches, he struggles to fight his fear, capturing the youth and terror of many of the men sent to Vietnam.
There’s a lot to discuss in terms of setting. If your students have any background knowledge of the Vietnam War, they’ll know that the unique form of the war, fought in skirmishes with Vietnamese who knew the terrain better than the Americans, lends itself well to a story about the struggles of young soldiers to overcome their fear: danger lies everywhere. As Paul and his fellow soldiers march toward the sea, Paul tells himself he will be safe there, reminding us of The Road, and the symbol of hope that the sea plays in that novel as well. The use of Paul’s hometown flashbacks adds to the contrast and his passing thought that the mounds of a graveyard would make great battlements gives an eerie tone to the story.
If you’re not able to get ahold of this specific excerpt, the short stories in O’Brien’s The Things They Carried would work equally well in a unit on setting.
Even if it seems too easy, don’t shy away from really digging into setting with your middle and high school students. High school short stories that rely heavily on setting offer a great opportunity to move past mere definitions and identification to more meaningful analysis. They’re also a great way to get your students thinking about symbolism and imagery in ways that might feel more accessible coming through the lens of a literary term they’re already comfortable with. High school literary analysis should be all about leveling up what students already know and can do, and any of these high school short stories would make a great start.
What high school short stories have you used to teach setting? Reach out to us at [email protected] or on Instagram @threeheads.works to let us know! Interested in more short stories recommendations that worked for us? We’ve got lists for plot, character, point of view, symbolism, and irony on our blog.