This resource provides a brief chronology of the American short story divided into periods and providing important authors of the period and their works.

This is the twelfth article in a series that is designed to help the new novel writer. This article focuses on how to effectively use descriptions in any writing.

This is the seventh installment of a series giving advice to the author who is new to writing novels. This article focuses on how to take your characters and use them and their conflicts to develop the plot of your story. W.9-10.3b Narrative techn, W.11-12.3b Narratives

The 11th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 11th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

In this unit, students will explore great works of American literature and consider how writers reflect the time period in which they write. They will write two literary analysis papers and also work in groups to research and develop anthologies of excellent American stories.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and analyze stories from several 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century American authors. After researching a time period, they select stories from that period to create an anthology. The readings enhance their understanding of the short story, increase their exposure to well-known American authors, and allow them to examine the influence of social, cultural, and political context.
Students examine elements of short stories and have an opportunity for close reading of several American short stories. During these close readings, they examine the ways that short story writers attempt to explore the greater truths of the American experience through their literature.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

If you were to write a short story about this decade, what issues might you focus on?
What defines a short story? Just length?
To what extent do these stories reflect the era or decade in which they were written?
To what extent are the themes they address universal?

CLASSROOM FILMS

History.com has short videos on the Vietnam War (“Vietnam” and “A Soldier's Story”).

In this lesson, students will explore dialogue and speech. They'll work with each other to understand the significance of the language and diction we use and consider how we are judged by the way we speak.

In this lesson, students will define terms related to plot and will “map” the plots of familiar stories. Using “The Tell-Tale Heart” again, they will discuss how writers build and develop plot in their stories.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to Edgar Allan Poe's theory on the “single effect” of the short story. They will read a passage from Poe as well as his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

In this lesson, students will begin to learn about the American short story. They will have an opportunity to practice close reading, and they'll explore the qualities of the short story genre through Quick Writes and discussion.

Students will view video documenting the real-life story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. Students will complete a story elements graphic organizer. This organizer will help them distinguish various story elements and put them in the chronological order.

In this episode of Piggley's Storyteller Warehouse, the host shares the basic building blocks of all stories: Who? What? Where? The host then sets the characters' names, the conflict, and the setting to the tune of a rap song.

This lesson introduces the concept of plots (how the material is organized and presented to the reader so that the text will have a specific effect on him or her) in fiction. It explains the plot diagram and provides examples. RL.9-10.5 text structure effects, RL.11-12.3 Auth choice story elem

This lesson focuses on analyzing a short story including all of the elements of a short story such as setting, plot and structure, and characterization.

Explore Edgar Allan Poe's famous short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart," in this video [3:05] from the American Masters film Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive. Discussion questions, teaching tips, and a student handout ask students to analyze the work while also learning more about the art of writing a short story. Students are asked to consider why the story remains popular today, connections to music, and how Poe hooks readers from the very first sentence.

In this lesson, students study issues related to independence and notions of manliness in Ernest Hemingway’s “Three Shots” as they conduct in-depth literary character analysis, consider the significance of environment to growing up and investigate Hemingway’s Nobel Prize-winning, unique prose style. In addition, they will have the opportunity to write and revise a short story based on their own childhood experiences and together create a short story collection.

This seven-page example is of a short story entitled "T-formity." Clicking on the "Writer's Guide" link in the upper right-hand corner of the page enables the user to get tips, directions, and explanations on the essay.

This writing tutorial focuses on helping the aspiring author find a good place to start on his or her fiction.