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Best Short Stories for Middle Grades


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What are the very best short stories to read and discuss in the middle grades - say 6th-8th?

 

And, if you are feeling expansive, why? What specific issue, either literary or content-wise, do you feel that the story illustrates?

 

I am looking forward to hearing what everyone says, and getting some great ideas to incorporate onto our reading lists. I'm also spinning off an idea I saw posted here awhile ago, someone put together a reading list to go with Figuratively Speaking, readings which illustrate concepts in the chapters. I love the poetry suggestions, but would like to find more short stories, rather than trying to read a novel correlated with many of the ~40 chapters.

 

Here is the list I've been working from - and thank you to whoever originally put it together and posted it!

 

http://hteacher.hubpages.com/hub/Learn-literary-terms-and-read-classic-literature-with-this-course-outline-using-Figuratively-Speaking

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Mostly just giving you a bump, but these look like standard selections.

 

We read through the best of The Annotated H.C. Anderson this year.

 

Thanks for that Figuratively Speaking link. I have found it easy enough to tie our previous novels into discussion. "Remember when we read [fill in the blank] ? That was a good example of the author using personification."

 

 

 

Hope someone will add to your list!

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The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. The stories are age-appropriate but the language is rich and there are interesting discussions to be had about structure and content. It's not at all like Disney.

 

As far as I remember, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is used in Lightning Literature 7.

 

Laura

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Mostly just giving you a bump, but these look like standard selections.

 

We read through the best of The Annotated H.C. Anderson this year.

 

Thanks for that Figuratively Speaking link. I have found it easy enough to tie our previous novels into discussion. "Remember when we read [fill in the blank] ? That was a good example of the author using personification."

 

 

 

Hope someone will add to your list!

 

Suh-weet! I like that a lot of these are on audio, so I can pre-listen while getting stuff done! Thanks!

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What are the very best short stories to read and discuss in the middle grades - say 6th-8th?

 

And, if you are feeling expansive, why? What specific issue, either literary or content-wise, do you feel that the story illustrates?

 

I am looking forward to hearing what everyone says, and getting some great ideas to incorporate onto our reading lists. I'm also spinning off an idea I saw posted here awhile ago, someone put together a reading list to go with Figuratively Speaking, readings which illustrate concepts in the chapters. I love the poetry suggestions, but would like to find more short stories, rather than trying to read a novel correlated with many of the ~40 chapters.

 

Here is the list I've been working from - and thank you to whoever originally put it together and posted it!

 

http://hteacher.hubp...tively-Speaking

 

 

 

We've finished most of Figuratively Speaking, but do still have some of this left. I love this list. Thanks!

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I had a few suggestions from your list on the High School Board, but it didn't post...I'll come back and post them again in a bit. :)

 

Okay, here is what I had...

 

I used the book that I mentioned in the High School Board post by first looking in the language skills index (which lists all of the literary terms and pages to which they are referred) and then from here going to the page numbers at the end of the story. Each story is followed by questions, literary skill work and composition ideas. I'm writing the name of the short story and author by each of the categories as I could find them in the index. I hope this makes sense. :) I haven't used this book yet, or read most of the short stories, so you may need to read over these yourself just to be sure. Also, you may wish to read these in case they need to be screened.

 

From A Book of Short Stories Volume 2:

 

Symbolism-Graham Greene's "Across the Bridge"

 

Parallelism-not in this book

 

Allusion-not in this book

 

Flashback-Anton Chekhov's "The Bet"

 

Foreshadowing-Shirley Jackson's "Trial by Combat"

 

Narrator Point of View-maybe William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" (not in this book)

 

Stream of Consciousness- Virginia Woolf's "A Haunted House" (not in this book)

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