5 Last Minute Spooky ELA Lessons

If the thought of teaching on Halloween is sending chills down your spine, check out these 5 last minute spooky ELA ideas. They are all stand alone activities and perfect for a one day and done lesson. ⁠

Idea 1: Read "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe

Introduce the idea of unreliable narrator with an abridged and adapted version of "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, a spooky story by the master of horror. 

Reading a short story that isn't centered around Halloween is a great way to spread the spooky spirit if incorporating the holidays into your classroom is against school policy or just inconsiderate due to students' different religious backgrounds.

The lesson includes point of view practice as well as text dependent and creative writing activities after students finish reading. Students will love reimagining the story from an alternate character's perspective.

Idea 2: Read "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

Dig into an eerie classic with a close reading of the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe paired with viewing its rendition from The Simpsons, in which Homer is haunted by Bart in bird form. Like "The Black Cat," it is a great text for evaluating the reliability of a narrator.

Another possibility is pairing it with Amanda Lovelace’s piece titled "The Raven (Remix)," a blackout poetry contribution featured in the YA Edgar Allan Poe-inspired anthology His Hideous Heart: Thirteen of Edgar Allan Poe’s Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler.

After reading students can tackle one of two text dependent writing prompts and create a six cell cartoon strip summarizing the poem.

Idea 3: Make A Tombstone

Ask students to summarize or synthesize learning from multiple sources to create a tombstone for an author, character or historical figure.

This free activity can be used as an extension activity or an assessment of students' knowledge. Other creative possibilities could be the “death” of a word, expression, book, or bad habit.

If you do this activity in the days leading up to Halloween, you can cut out and hang the tombstones to spookify your classroom.

Idea 4: Write Two Sentence Horror Stories

Work through the writing process of brainstorming, drafting, revising, and producing a final draft in just one class period with two sentence horror stories.

I put on some spooky playlists, show students a few examples, and then push students to write and rewrite, as they look at their word choice to choose stronger verbs and more specific nouns, and to add sensory details. 

Some years I've had student write their final drafts on paper and illustrate them and other years I've had student design Slides with their two sentence horror stories to make it easy to present them to the class.

Idea 5: Learn About The History of Halloween

Focus on the history of Halloween with a nonfiction close reading that makes connections between an NPR article and FDR's speech at Madison Square Garden.

Seasonal nonfiction close readings like this one are an easy way to incorporate nonfiction texts that your students will actually be interested in reading. A rigorous articles from National Public Radio is paired with ten questions aligned with the Informational Common Core standards. 

Seven engaging suggested after reading activities make cross curricular connections, and include service learning and project based learning ideas.

Exposing Students to New Books of Interest: 4 Things I Do Throughout the Year

Over the years I've built up my classroom library from just two bookshelves to over 1,600 books. A bigger classroom library means more books for students to choose from, but it can also make it difficult for students to select a book they are interested in.⁠ 

At the start of the school year, I spend a considerable amount of time making sure students understand the different genres that I use to organize my classroom library and where to find those genres (and additional formats like graphic novels, verse novels, manga, and short story collections). But having students understand which genres they are interested in is just the beginning of helping them to find books they want to read.

To expose students to books in our classroom library and help them build a TBR (to be read) list throughout the year, here's four things I do routinely.