It's Short Story Time!

I began the year with poetry (for my 10th grade English class) because: (a) it is a big part of the Cambridge program and I needed to get refreshed myself; (b) it is a good way to review literary terms students will use the rest of the year; and (c) honestly, it was the easiest to plan for. It's been years since I have "taught" all of the elements of ELA. Of course, I incorporated it in my methods classes (and I did teach YA lit and writing); however, going back to teach it to high school students is like starting all over again. Now, that we are at the point to take the first quarter test and move on, I am going to do a unit of short stories. Again, I can review and reinforce key terms students will need for novels and plays. Also, I want to get some foundation work in so we can really dive into the longer works the rest of the year. So . . . it is time to really hit literary theory and critical literacy! (I did try it a little with poetry, but our anthology has old, old poems for the most part). I wanted to share this chart I made because over the past five years as I have written about and presented research from my YA lit class some colleagues have asked for it. I didn't come up with this--I just compiled from some really smart people: