Reading Short Stories ~ Roald Dahl in Class

 

One of my favourite writers for the ‘Reading Class’ is Roald Dahl. I’ve been using his short stories for almost a decade and the students have always loved them.

I just came across with this pdf http://www.msad54.org/district/literacyspecialist/pdf/blooms.pdf

But you can also get more ideas for using Bloom’s taxonomy in reading classes which I find very practical when preparing my own handouts for my students http://www.scoop.it/t/blooms-taxonomy-in-efl-classroom

I mostly use the following Roald Dahl stories with my 11^th and 12^th graders.

The Landlady, a very shocking story and teenagers love it.

Here are some great lessons of the story I found on the net.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/britlit/landlady

http://mysite.verizon.net/zila84/_llady.pdf

Word games and puzzles http://teachers.henrico.k12.va.us/wilder/williams_d/thelandlady.html

An adaptation on YouTube http://youtu.be/4tcj5P3jjeI

My suggestion as a follow up:

Pretend you are Billy. You just found out what happened to the two young men and realised you were also poisoned, and locked into a room. Luckily you have still your mobile (as the landlady is a little bit old-fashioned she hadn’t known anything about mobiles and social media). Write a text message to a close friend, update your status on Facebook and send a tweet to the whole world and ask for help. Write your version of the story.

Create a scrapbook based on the setting, events and characters from the story. (You can use a web 2.0 option for this task)

My students’ web 2.0 projects on the story. http://englishwithgrade12fld.blogspot.com/2011/10/landlady-by-roald-dahl.html

The Way Up To Heaven

http://www.roalddahlfans.com/shortstories/wayu.php

A YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJAPwN9eAqk

A suggestion on how to analyse this story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcNMaD8Vnww

A pre reading task:

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5484042/The_way_up_to_heaven_by_Roald_Dahl

Lamb to Slaughter

Years ago my students adapted the story to stage, wrote the script and performed. Unfortunately in those years, technology was not like this and I was also a bit technophobic so even a simple camera recording isn’t available now.

Here are some links to inspire you to prepare your own

A Short story inspired writing lesson http://writingfix.com/Short_story_Prompts/Lamb_slaughter1.htm

From Roald Dahl’s fans http://www.roalddahlfans.com/teachers/lamb.php

http://www.brighthubeducation.com/homework-help-literature/123135-study-questions-for-lamb-to-the-slaughter/

http://lk-theroadnottaken.blogspot.com/2010/09/teaching-roald-dahls-lamb-to-slaughter.html

A web 2.0 suggestion:

You can watch a clip fro Hitchcock’s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ then ask the students to redirect the movie. They have can prepare a PowerPoint presentation, a prezi or a glogster and introduce to the class their cast, soundtrack, setting, etc giving their reasons why they chose the actors and the music. They can also create a movie poster.

More ideas for reading classes:

Or if you can read all the stories in a row, maybe you can ask the similarities of these three women.

Fun with Class Readers 1

Fun with Class Readers 2

Fun with Class Readers 3

Reading Challenge

And don’t forget to visit the beautiful official Roald Dahl page