Short Stories

Teaching Short Stories

Traditional Methods/Ideas

• Short Story Form: plot, characters, setting etc - covering vocabulary for each item
• Preview: 3 minutes to scan covers, find characters
• Making a list of conflicts: summarize parts that have emotional connection with
• Story hills/plot diagram

Less Traditional Methods/Ideas

• Reading out loud, in groups/pairs
• Acting out scenes
• Predicting possible endings
• Relating character problems to typical problems of students/the community
• Comparing TV shows to short stories: questions to answer, who is good guy and bad guy, what is the setting, what are the plot stages, theme etc.
• Making diaramas scenes from the story
• Writing a letter as a character from one story to another character
• Changing POV, re-writing a section of the story from another character's POV
• Snap Shots
• Exploding the moment: taking a small section of a story and expanding it to several pages