A Tale of Two Short Story Projects

Finding the English teacher’s path to sanity, sustainability, and deeper learning

Teachers of middle and high school English know that short story projects can be fun and highly engaging for students. From ideation to planning to drafting to revising, short stories can connect powerfully with young learners in ways that other learning does not.

Short stories can unleash student imaginations and allow them to run wild through gardens of delight. It’s a unique experience and one worth including in middle and high school English courses.

Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash

Short story project version 1: weeks of agony and resentment

Despite the positive aspects of short story projects for many students, “gardens of delight” is not how I viewed short stories through the first 10 years of my middle school teaching career.

Here is what the scenario often looked like for me:

• An extensive writing rubric that had no narrowly defined learning target but included all the major aspects of creative writing: form, style, meaning, and conventions
• Two weeks of in-class and at-home writing process for students (with low-visibility student work) before submission to me