Best Short Stories for Middle & High School BUNDLE: 28 Stories / 350+ Pages

This bundle brings together our outstanding lesson plan compilations for both middle school and high school. Every English teacher knows there are stories that work at both levels, and bundling these resources together allows teachers to get access to all 28 stories at a lower price.

Lesson plans are included for the following stories:

• The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
• The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs
• The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Hitch-Hiker by Lucille Fletcher
• The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
• Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
• The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
• The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C Clarke
• Third From the Sun by Richard Matheson
• The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury
• Time Enough at Last by Lynn Venable
• The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe
• Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Landlady by Roald Dahl
• Sorry, Wrong Number by Lucille Fletcher
• The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Murder by John Steinbeck
• Guests of the Nation by Frank O’Connor
• The Little Room by Madeline Yale Wynne
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
• A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
• Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed by Ray Bradbury
• The Storm by McKnight Malmar
• Click-Clack the Rattlebag by Neil Gaiman
• A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
• Catching Cold by Neal Shusterman
• The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
• Examination Day by Henry Slesar

That's a ton of stories.

Stories themselves are not included in the lesson plans. However, you can find links to all the stories on our website. You can find them here: Best Short Stories for Middle School and Best Short Stories for High School.

.

All our lesson plans include the following sections:

Intro

Each of our lesson plans begins with a short intro page giving a brief review of the story and its publication history: when it was first published and where.

Story in Context

Brief background is provided for certain concepts that students may be unfamiliar with. Enough to encourage class discussion, but not enough to be distracting to the story itself.

In these lessons we explore how prisoners were hung during the civil war, the history of unreliable narrators, ponder the legal concept of coverture, consider the butterfly effect, look at the history of ice cream trucks, ponder harvest rites, discuss radio dramas are a precursor to podcasts, history of radio dramas, the dangers of nuclear war, the power of a dog's nose, the history of catacombs, and ask if anyone can know the true name of God.

Stories in Conversation

Stories do not exist in a vacuum. Our lesson plans try to connect the dots between the story itself and other stories, movies, and media that came before and after.

In these lessons we draw connections between a wide range of stories, songs and movies from Bruce Springsteen to Stephen King,The Twilight Zone to Ian Fleming, even The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. We see how Edgar Allan Poe was inspired by Honore Balzac, how Maupassant influenced Ernest Hemingway, and more.

Interrogating Characters

Interrogating Characters presents students with a way to engage with specific characters in the story. We select characters other than the main character or narrator so that students can ponder other points of view.

In these lessons we interrogate an old man with a vulture eye, an adulterous cousin, a slave-owner who attempts to blow up a Union bridge, a young boy exploring abandoned Martian cities, an assassin for hire, an unsuspecting boyfriend, a man whose work brings about the end of the world, the Handicapper General of the United States, a murderous landlady, a wealthy man who ends up sealed behind a brick wall, a journalist who predicts the coming nuclear war, a teacher who is ultimately brought back from the dead.

Missing in Action

Every story has gaps or missing points of view. In Missing in Action, we ask students to consider those neglected viewpoints in order to gain a better understanding of what the author has left out.

In these lessons we ponder why the Martians died out thousands of years ago, whether or not an escaped convict is as horrible as he seems, question why a Union scout sets up a civilian to be caught and hanged, consider a rebellious ballerina who takes a courageous stand, step inside the mind of dinosaur, wonder about a sea captain who once had his hand refused in marriage, debate the existence of a ghostly hitchhiker, question a guard who allows a family to escape with a space ship, ponder the wife of a man lost in the rubble of a ruined city, examine a cab driver whose passenger loses a diamond necklace in his cab, and wonder about the future of a baby whose mother murdered its father

Analyzing Language

Analyzing Language provides 6 questions that look specifically at the language the author has used and asks students to consider those choices to better understand the story.

Activity

Each lesson plan has one Activity. Some are solo projects, others are done with partners or in groups. Activities engage students with the text in ways that are analytical but not based on essay responses.

In these lessons we debate just what a good man really is, ask why time seems to speed up and slow down depending on what you’re doing at the moment, craft our own time safari, create a 20-flavor ice cream truck menu, select the perfect Christmas gits, consider what kind of romantic relationship codes of conduct are still acceptable, examine whether or not we would execute prisoner of war, craft maps of a deadly island in the Caribbean, prepare a legal defense for an insane murderer, modernize a deadly tradition, plan the perfect crime, write our own radio play, determine how to make a classroom equal in every single way, design a family crest, select 20 books to keep for restarting civilization, and write our own radio play

Launchpad

Launchpad asks students to write their own stories using the story selection as a starting point. Usually this is a continuation of the tale that asks students to use their imaginations.

In these lessons we contemplate the fate of a woman who has rushed into a terrible storm, craft letters to the mother of a POW we executed, follow a grief-stricken father as he investigates his son's disappearance, consider how a single act of rebellion can reshape society, imagine ourselves in the stands of a horrific murder trial, pen a tale about the very end of existence, consider the reasons a man seeks a divorce, follow a family arriving on a new planet, write about a dog that goes hunting for the dead, follow a blind man traveling through a burned out city in the aftermath of nuclear war, wonder about a wife seeking revenge on her husband's murderer and write a story from the point of view of a misunderstood feline.