Stories That Really Add Up

How can reading short stories benefit people? To conclude a unit study of this genre, class members script and film a public service announcement addressing this essential question.

Story chains connect literary concepts, reinforce context clues, and even help learners predict what's coming next! Using words from the next chapter of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, middle schoolers craft story chains to determine...

Putting together an interesting story can be hard, but this set of worksheets will guide your writers into the depths of their own creativity as they characterize both their main character and villain. Using humor to keep learners...

Stage a mini debate about Edgar Allan Poe's story "Ligeia." After picking a few interpretations, split your class into groups and allow some time for preparation. Pupils must use textual evidence to support their arguments. Close the...

Here are some very useful worksheets which help children to plan their original written stories. I really like this 3-page packet! The first part of the story plan is to create the main characters in the story. Then, there are spaces to...

How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory lesson that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In order to get a...

What would the world look like if there were a way to stop the aging process? Take a look at Kurt Vonnegut's vision of this future in "The Big Trip Up Yonder." Class members read the short story and then respond to a series of text-based...

Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...

Multiple heads are better than one! Learners pair up to write short stories that have three solid paragraphs: the introduction, body, and conclusion. To keep all learners on track, the teacher times each segment. Consider including time...

Make sure your pupils can hit the target when analyzing cause and effect by practicing with this worksheet. On each arrow, pupils write a cause of an event in a story, and on each bullseye, they write the effect.