Homage to the Short Story

            I love teaching the short story to my seventh graders.  We read YA classics in their literature anthology, like Langston Hughes’s “Thank You, M’am” and “Charles” by Shirley Jackson.  Of course the culminating highlight is Edgar Allan Poe’s riveting “The Tell Tale Heart.”  My students’ faces at the end of the story are priceless, and the impending class discussion goes something like this:

            “You mean the psycho guy buries the old dude alive?”

            “Yep!”

            “You mean the heart the he hears is his own?”

            “Yep!”

            “That’s tight, Ms. Dana!”

            “Sure is.  They don’t credit Edgar Allan Poe with Master of the Detective Story for nothing.  And did you know he married and fell in love with his thirteen year old cousin?”

            “Ewwwwwwwwww!!!!!”

            Never a dull moment when Poe is on the agenda…

           

As a genre, my students prefer short stories over poetry and the novel.  They appreciate the brevity and are bowled over by the dramatic denouement present in so many.  What I love is their exposure to unique voices, profound characters, and universal themes – all in one class period!

            If you forgot the thrill of the short story, are between novels, or just in a reading funk – check out or revisit these spine-tingling tales:

“Roman Fever” – Edith Wharton

“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” – Ernest Hemingway

“The Necklace” – Guy de Maupassant

“Lamb to the Slaughter” – Roald Dahl

“The Dinner Party” – Mona Gardner

“The Tell-Tale Heart” – Edgar Allan Poe

“The Lottery” – Shirley Jackson

“The Monkey’s Paw” – W. W. Jacobs

“Bernice Bobs Her Hair” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The Gift of the Magi” – O. Henry