literature Archives - The Teachers' Library

The Sniper: Writing for Pacing

Lauren Crowley — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 07:08:55 +0000

The Sniper, by Liam O’Flaherty, is a great short story to teach the basic elements of a story, including setting, climax, resolution, and plot twist. I also find it an excellent story to introduce students to the idea of pacing. The writing objective for this story and lesson is to use mentor sentences to write compound or complex sentences for description, and to use shorter, declarative sentences for action sequence.

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We read the story together out loud either as a whole group, or in smaller groups. I encourage students to use punctuation to guide them on how to read the story for fluency. The reading handout and PowerPoint has essential vocabulary for comprehension, pre-reading discussion questions to build background and historical context, and post-reading comprehension questions.

Students then use mentor sentences to construct their own sentences of varied lengths. Then they move on to a flash fiction activity where they need to be mindful of the intention behind each sentence, and choose the length accordingly. The flash fiction activity can be as short or as workshopped as time allows, as either a quick paragraph exit ticket, or a longer extension activity.

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array(“https://www.theteacherslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/The-Sniper.pdf”,”Download short story and reading companion”,”pdf”,”363kb”),
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To Build A Fire by Jack London

Lauren Crowley — Sat, 28 Jan 2017 08:58:45 +0000

Below is a PowerPoint I use when teaching the popular story, To Build A Fire, by Jack London. I use this story to teach characterization and character development, and how they are established by the author’s use of a particular point of view or perspective. Students are asked to consider how the dog, equally as important a character as the man, is used to reveal aspects about the man’s character.

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* A fun extension activity I have done with students, especially students who live in hot climates, is to ask them to write their name or tie their shoes with their fingers taped together, to illustrate the debilitating effects of frostbite.

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Gothic Horror Complete Unit

Lauren Crowley — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 13:42:34 +0000

Here is a Gothic Horror unit I use with middle schoolers, although the language in these antiquated texts is complex enough that it could be done with high school students as well. This unit can take between 4 and 6 weeks, depending how much is done for homework. Throughout the unit, we read excerpts form The Castle of Ontranto, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Red Room, Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

We begin by analyzing the historical context of the genre, as well as identifying common Gothic Horror motifs. We focus heavily on identifying and interpreting uses of imagery, and using mentor sentences to write descriptively. To hit on some grammar objectives, we also use the mentor sentences to expand simple sentences into compound and complex sentences, with a focus on punctuating simple, compound, and complex sentence accurately.

As a summative assessment, students workshop their own creative writing piece inspired by Gothic Horror to showcase what they have learned about the motifs and conventions of the genre.

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array(“https://www.theteacherslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/frankenstein.pdf”,”Download PDF excerpt of Frankenstein“,”pdf”,”265kb”),
array(“https://www.theteacherslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Excerpt-from-Dracula.pdf”,”Download PDF excerpt of Dracula“,”pdf”,”193kb”),
array(“https://www.theteacherslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Two-Excerpts-from-The-Legend-of-Sleepy-Hollow.pdf”,”Download PDF excerpt of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow“,”pdf”,”295kb”)
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*Note: Many of these 18th and 19th century texts have copious sophisticated vocabulary, so if you plan to have students reading these texts independently, try this handout for reading for vocabulary.

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Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl

Lauren Crowley — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 14:27:19 +0000

Below is a PowerPoint and vocabulary organizer I use when teaching Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter, usually as part of a larger short story unit. It’s a great model text for showcasing plot twist, irony, and characterization.

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The Tell-Tale Heart

Lauren Crowley — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 11:40:10 +0000

I teach The Tell-Tale Heart within a larger unit on Gothic Horror. Below are lined version of the story, a reading companion with comprehension questions, and a powerpoint with key vocabulary and discussion questions.

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