A Student-Centered Short Story Curriculum

The outline for a reading course based on both intensive and extensive reading of short stories is presented. The 11-week course focuses on five stories, three selected by the teacher and two selected by the students as a class. A course overview details the sequence of reading and classroom activities, and the procedures for a typical four-week story unit are also specified. Each unit includes pre-reading activities, several options for text reading, a comprehension check, a discussion of literary issues (setting, character, plot), a session devoted to literature discussion circles, and extending activities such as role play, dialogue writing, debate, or discussion and special writing assignment. Additional materials include a sample exercise for one story, procedures for a literary circle, directions for student journal entry writing, notes on the evaluation of journals, procedures for keeping a vocabulary log, and directions for a concluding independent reading project. Contains 22 references and a list of potential stories for classroom use. (MSE)