Language arts teachers in a middle school setting want to encourage critical reading of literature. They realize that horror tales is a popular literary sub-genre. At the same time, students haven’t spent much time seriously thinking about what makes a quality horror story. In this unit, they not only read many horror stories but they critically analyze what makes a horror story particularly effective. The teachers design the unit and enlist the help of the LMS to identify selections that might be read by the students. The LMS not only introduces the literature; but she also assists the teachers in designing an assessment tool to rate and analyze the fiction. In addition, she suggests that students create digital posters of their findings that become part of a huge Halloween display in the library. NOTE: This particular unit is an adapted composite of strategies and lessons successfully used at several different middle schools in Hawaii.
Overview:
The teachers and LMS tap students’ prior knowledge about horror fiction, why they read it, and what they particularly find fascinating about this sub-genre. Building on this prior knowledge, the LMS selects a wide range of fiction and promotes the stories through face-to-face booktalks and VoiceThread presentations. As students select stories to read and rate, they focus on the following essential question: What makes a powerful scary story?
Final Product:
This particular unit is scheduled before Halloween. Students contribute to a special Halloween display in the school library that includes chilling scenes from the best stories they have selected. They create digital posters for this display.
Library Lesson:
Students in grade seven each read at least three scary fiction stories and work on the following:
(1) identify criteria to judge the “scariness” of the fiction they read, (2) use a “Scare-O-Meter” to rate the fiction read, (3) share stories with classmates and explain their ratings. Finally, they each select one of the stories to add to a “Scare-O-Rama” Halloween display in the school library. They create digital posters for the display that includes chilling scenes from the stories along with their ratings. In this particular lesson, the students use the “Scare-O-Meter” to rate the fiction they have read. This lesson takes place in two sessions, each about 60 minutes.
Estimated Lesson Time:
120 minutes
Have you taught this lesson before:
No
Strategies for differentiation:
The teacher and LMS allow students to read a range of stories based on their reading levels and interests. Students also help one another to critically support their ratings.