Hit on short stories for middle school

[Amy Austin <PAustin333@AOL.COM>]

Hello LM_Netters!

I've received many wonderful replies about short stories for middle school
students as well as activities to incorporate with the short stories.  Many
thanks to all who responded! :-)  Here goes.....

I've always looked for short stories , and have had little success.  I
I use the Gary Soto book, BASEBALL IN APRIL, this has some good ones,
also Roald Dahl, THE WORLD OF HENRY SUGAR, but I certainly could use
some other ideas.

I like to read the H.H. Munro (Saki) story called Gabriel Ernest.
Before reading the story I like the students to know something about Munro,
so I prepared some printed "Jeopardy" style statements and their answers
using biographical facts about him, such as "Munro's last words," which
links to the answer "Put out that bloody cigarette!" I print these out in a
fairly large font, cut them apart, and paste the statements to one color of
construction paper cards and the answers to another color. I distribute
them randomly to students and let them walk around reading their own cards
to each other trying to find what they think is a match. The statements are
all numbered, so after everyone has paired off, I can call on the person
who has #1 to read their statement, and then we see if they found the
correct matching answer. I always make sure to highlight his relationship
with his aunt and have them look for the brainless aunt in the story.

I just recently found an excellent collection of folk tales edited by Jane
Yolen. It's called Folk Tales of the World, or something simple like that.
The tales are very well chosen. Every one of the story anthologies where
she is mentioned as the editor are very good. "Things that go Bump in the
Night" is another one.

Gallo has done wonders with story collections for middle school/YAs.
There's Sixteen, Visions, etc.  Also, Yolen's Vampires always gets
attention.

Some of my favorites are:
"Priscilla and the Wimps" by Richard Peck, in Gallo's anthology _Sixteen_
"Unicorn" and "Sword" from Peter Dickinson's _Merlin Dreams_
"Without a Shirt" and "Smart Ice Cream" fom Paul Jenning's _Unreal_
"An Infestation of Unicorns" from Yolen's _Here There Be Unicorns_

The Tell Tale Heart & A Cask of Amontillado, E.A. Poe
The Open Window, Saki
The Outcasts of Poker Flat & The Luck of Roaring Camp, Bret Harte
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce
to name a few great ones off the top of my head.

I really like the Creative Classics series published by Creative
Education. Each book is one short story from classic literature (_The
Lady or The Tiger_  is one example).
   These have several advantages:
        1. some students, who have never finished a "whole book", find their
first success with one of these;
        2. the print is large enough to not be intimidating but not so large as
to be "babyish" for middle schoolers (or high school);
        3. the stories themselves are quality literature from well-known
authors;
        4. for schools using Accelerated Reader, almost all of the titles in
this series have AR tests available.

Short stories have undergone a surge of popularity at our school since I
ordered many ghost stories and scary stories from August House, the
publisher for National Storytelling Assn.  When I run out of Stine's I
send them there.
One of our reading teachers asks her students to bring sleeping bags and
flashlights on Halloween.
She makes a fake fire in the middle of her classroom and they all "camp."
 They take turns telling and reading scary stories.  The kids love it.

When I worked at a 6-8 Middle School, we used with students who were
exploring the concept of short story various collections which they dibbled
and dabbled in.  But by far the teachers and my favorites were those
collections edited by Donald R. Gallo and the stories temselves written by
Young Adult Authors.  Each story collection is often loosely based around a
theme and there is author information after each story.
The collections were used at both the high school level and our middle
school level.  Again at our middle level they were part of a cart of short
story collections that students just browsed and read from during class
time.

Gallo, Donald R.;  CIRCUITS, CONNECTIONS, JOIN IN, SIXTEEN, & VISIONS.

I have read the "Chelm" stories from Issac Bashevis Singer to 6th graders who
think they are a riot.  Do you know what they are?  They are stories about
the fools who live in a small Jewish Polish village who take everything
literally.

Cynthia Rylant has a couple books of short stories; titles escape me at the
moment (I'm home and it's late).

BLUE SKIN OF THE SEA by Graham Salisbury is a collection of interrelated
stories about 2 boys growing up in Hawaii.  One is white and the other native
Hawaiian.  The first story takes place when they are quite young, just
learning to swim if I remember correctly, and the stories continue at
intervals throgh their teens.  Good characterization, plot, realistic dialog,
and trenchant morsels of wisdom about life. Very powerful.
In a slightly different vein, STORIES TO SOLVE (there are 2 now) has
folktales that incorporate a riddle or question.  Middle schoolers love to
try to solve them!

I like the messages in
Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco and The Wretched Stone by Van Allsburg.
The messages are powerful for all ages.

Try "Short Stories:  Characters in Conflict", edited by John E. Warriner,
and published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.  It was published in 1981, but
contains quite a few of the classics for Middle School reading, and several
modern authors, too.  Now, if they would just publish an updated edition...

Thanks Again!

Amy Austin
Vivian Field Middle School
Carrollton/Farmers Branch, Texas
PAustin333@aol.com

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