Short Story Read Aloud
There are so many good reasons to read aloud in middle school. This short unit reinforces annotation skills and sets the stage for students to begin their choice novel study with confidence.
Coming back from the winter break, our grade 8 team wanted to reconnect and ease back into the work, and we had been looking for a chance to re-incorporate some whole-class read-alouds. This unit - collaboratively planned - seemed like the perfect way. Each teacher championed a different short story, and we highlighted different ways to annotate texts, reinforcing skills already taught and deepening students' understanding.
The three stories that we chose were:
Super Human, by Nicola Yoon (In a world where one split-second choice could change everything, "Super Human" asks what happens when the person everyone fears might be the only one who can save them. Be prepared for the kids to go nuts at the end of this one!)
Sol Painting, Inc, by Meg Medina (Merci’s day of helping her dad paint a school turns into an eye-opening lesson about pride, family, and the small acts of bravery that shape who we become.)
The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell (When a famous hunter is stranded on a strange island, he quickly realizes something is very wrong. This story also contains some outdated and racist language because of when it was written. When we read it aloud, we discussed this issue and changed or omitted racist language. This was an intentional choice for a text as it allowed us to develop our students' ability to be critical of classic and modern texts, which have controversial or racist elements.)
As is always the case, there are things that I would change about this unit for next time. But one of the things that worked really well, and that I really liked, was the chance to read aloud with our students. The hustle of the teaching year often feels like it is pulling us along, and this was a great chance to slow down a bit and reconnect in our love for telling great stories. And still keep moving the teaching and learning forward in a way that didn't feel like we were "losing time". A win!
We are sharing the PowerPoint version of the teaching slide deck (originally created in Canva) and the graphic organizers we used (in PDF version).
As usual, feel free to hack, edit, or change. Comment and share back if you plus us!