Encourage your middle schoolers to interact with the text as they read. While reading "Three Skeleton Key," class members note predictions, define words and study their meanings, take notes on how the suspense builds, and jot down ideas about the events of the story. Close the instructional activity with vocabulary and comprehension questions.

Concepts

foreshadowing, suspense, short stories, making predictions, word meanings

Show More Show Less

Additional Tags

english language arts

Show More Show Less

Instructional Ideas

• Start off as a class and pause when the questions along the side prompt you to do so
• If it's plausible to give learners individual copies, have them mark the text in addition to taking notes along the side

Classroom Considerations

• The resource is quite long, so you may consider making a class copy and asking learners to write responses to the questions and other notes on a separate sheet of paper or worksheet that you create

• This resource is only available on an unencrypted HTTP website.It should be fine for general use, but don’t use it to share any personally identifiable information

Pros

• The resource includes the entire story and a column along the side of each page where learners can write their notes
• Includes an answer key

Cons

• None