British Council
Learning English through Short Stories
Use short stories to teach English? Yes! Designed as a professional development opportunity for English language teachers, the ideas in this booklet can easily be adapted to advanced ESL/ELL classes.
Curated OER
Edgar Allan Poe Short Story WebQuest
Introduce your class to Edgar Allan Poe with a series of mostly self-guided tasks and assignments. Class members follow the list of tasks, starting by watching a video with background information and ending with a compare-and-contrast...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce’s short story, is used to model how structural moves, the decisions an author makes about setting, point of view, time order, etc., can be examined to reveal an author’s purpose. Groups...
Curated OER
Short Story Elements
Students engage in a lesson that investigates the elements that are necessary in a short story. Each element is covered separately while they take notes for each part. Then the teacher points out each element while reading a short story...
Curated OER
Beginning Short Stories - "What Do We Have to Eat?"
After reading two short stories, learners identify vocabulary associated with food and eating. This activity with 5 questions could be used as a reading comprehension and vocabulary practice for younger students or an ESL worksheet for...
Curated OER
Literary Elements in Short Stories
Introduce your class to Glogster with this literary analysis instructional activity. At the end of your short story unit, they choose one literary element to apply to three short stories and make an online poster using Glogster. Samples...
Curated OER
Beginning Short Stories w/ Questions - An Adventure
This activity, which could be used in the lower grades for reading comprehension practice or with older students as part of an ESL lesson, has learners read a short story and answer six comprehension and vocabulary questions. As part of...
Curated OER
Short Story Commercials
Learners read short story selections, and work with classmates to produce commercials using digital video equipment.
Longman
Stories for reading comprehension
A packet full of old-fashioned short stories could be a review activity for a reading comprehension lesson. Learners read 14 stories before answering multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank sentences, and vocabulary exercises.
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension - Short Stories: "Wanga"
Who says reading comprehension exercises can't be fun? Your readers will be engaged with the short story about witch doctor spells that provides the text and the included answer sheet dispells any mystery as to the correct answer. The...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension - Short Stories: "Remains of a Marriage"
Planning a short story unit? Consider including this worksheet early in your plan. "Remains of a Marriage" provides the text that could be used as the basis of a lesson on close reading, on comprehension strategies, and/or group...
Curated OER
Short Story Lesson Plan: "The Californian's Tale"
Middle schoolers read the short story "The Californian's Tale" by Mark Twain and complete related activities. They discuss vocabulary for the story and complete a vocabulary matching definition activity. They complete writing activities...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Short Story Writers Say
There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author study....
Vanier College
Analyzing Short Stories/Novels
Good questions can help focus readers' attention on the elements writers use to add depth to their stories. The questions on this worksheet do just that and encourage readers to think critically about a story and author's purpose.
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to the Short Story
How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory instructional activity that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In...
Core Knowledge Foundation
Unit 5: Realms of Gold - Vol. 2 Poetry and Short Stories Teacher Guide
Seventh graders have a golden opportunity to learn how to read poems and short stories with a unit that introduces them to the techniques writers use to craft their works. They examine poems by William Carlos Williams and Edgar Allen Poe...
Pinecrest Preparatory Middle and High School
Short Story Planning Guide
A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.
Curated OER
Hemingway's Short Stories Quiz
This online quiz is really only useful if your class has read several short stories by Hemingway, as it doesn't focus just on one. There are 12 multiple choice questions here, and they almost all relate to a different story.
Curated OER
Hemingway's Short Stories - Essay Questions
Ernest Hemingway is one of America's great writers. After reading one (or several) of his short stories, visit this list of 24 questions relating to at least 10 of his short stories. Some of the questions are basic recall questions, and...
Curated OER
O'Connor's Short Stories by Flannery O'Connor
After reading Flannery O'Connor's short stories, provide your high schoolers with these questions. You could use these to prompt higher level thinking for an upcoming test, or provide them as essay prompts.
EngageNY
Developing Reading Fluency: Beginning the End of Unit 2 Assessment
Third graders continue to develop their reading fluency in preparation for their assessment in the tenth lesson plan of this unit. Young readers are provided with a short passage on Helen Keller, which they use while working in pairs...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Dramatic Structure of the Short Story
The second lesson in a series of fourteen, this plan takes the short story basics a step further. Learners complete a quiz about the story from the previous day, discuss the text, learn about Anton Chekhov, and work in groups to begin...
Curated OER
Instill a Passion for Writing Short Stories
Quick writing tips and tricks to guide and polish learners' narrative writing.
Curated OER
"Ben's First Pet" Reading Comprehension- Short Stories
Primary learners will read a short story about a boy getting a new pet dog. They then answer 10 multiple choice questions to test their comprehension. Great supplement for pet unit.