I remember the whole “Great Books” program heavily promoting the categorizing of fiction into “man vs nature”, “man vs man”, “man vs self” etc. So I’m not surprised they would pick a lot of things that focused on conflict as a theme…
“Sredni Vashtar” was far and away my favorite story–the only beautiful story, to cite another Saki tale–when I was 10. Which probably tells you all you need to know about my childhood . . .
I agree, but his books are just dreadful. I can’t understand it.
Uh-- If it doesn’t have conflict, it isn’t a story.
Zyada suggests picking something from The Canterbury Tales, and a co-worker mentioned Greek and Roman mythology. (Norse would be good too, or Irish, or Russian, or …)
And another author I should have remembered is Lord Dunsany. His Fifty-one Tales is full of poetic little vignettes, some with no plot at all, but every one beautifully crafted.
Project Gutenberg doesn’t have that, but a bunch of his stuff is there, and they have a “Bookshelf” of short stories by many other authors.
[pedantic nitpick]King does write wonderful short fiction, but he spells his name with ph, not v, so it’s Stephen King. [/pn]
If you’re going with King, imho, Dolan’s Cadillac is a wonderful short story.
Twain’s Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and O Henry’s Ransom of Red Chief have both been suggested. Wonderful stories though they be, I think they’re more suited to middle school. Unless you’re teaching a lit class for kids who’ve never really gotten the point of reading. If these are high school students who’ve been reading for pleasure for a while, I’d be really surprised if they hadn’t already read these. I think I’d read both of them (more than once!) by the time I was 12 or 13!
Hah. That (bolded) was a good one.
I was older, more like 12, I still have my Scholastic paperback of the Saki collection, published in 1968. I remember reading Sredni Vashtar over and over for a period of time, which perhaps tells all that needs to be known about my adolescence. I especially loved the poem.
Some of Saki’s works might be on the acerbic side, but for me they were perfect, high impact short stories; so much was encompassed in so very few pages.
Another collection of short stories I read a lot back then: Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. I especially remember Rocket Man, and The Veldt.
A lot of great and intriguing suggestions here, I am going to look up all the ones I haven’t read and try to find them… Short stories are an often overlooked form of writing, both to study and to enjoy!
Along with Ray Bradbury, one of my favorite SF short story writers is Roger Zelazny. His stories often have undertones questioning what it means to be human, in both overt and subtle ways. My favorite short story of his is For A Breath I Tarry, which is in a collection of his short stories called The Last Defender Of Camelot (also a good story).
You can also discuss Hemingway’s famous example of a six word short story that he (facetiously?) deemed his “best work”: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
I am amazed at the stories that people have studied in their middle-school aged years. I also teach 8th grade English, and we do have the Jumping Frog story in their lit book, as well as The Ransom of Red Chief, but nothing like Saki or The Lottery.
Here is the list of stories I have picked out as of today(the luxury of summer is that I can surf the net and fine tune my curriculum up through August):
Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado – focusing on the three types of irony, excellent examples
Jackson’s The Lottery
Bruce’s Gentlemen, Your Verdict – moral dilemma
O’Flahery’s The Sniper – setting, character, irony
Nowlan’s The Fall of a City – mood
Thurber’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – character, theme
Futrelle’s The Problem of Cell 13 – logic, problem-solving
Bierce’s An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge
Lovecraft’s Dagon
Shulman’s Love is a Fallacy – logic
Saki’s The Story-Teller
Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily – metaphor, character
I am very grateful for all your help, and as I said, this is just the beginning of working with this…
Everything in Jorge Luis Borges’ Ficciones. So many good short stories! In particular, The Lottery of Babylon, Death and the Compass, The Circular Ruins … and on and on. Every one, pretty well, a classic.
I well remember doing these in my high school. At first, I was highly skeptical; but I quickly became hooked, and they have remained some of my favorites all my life.
If you do only one Poe story, make sure it’s The Premature Burial.
The Forgotten Brides of the Faceless Slaves of the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire, by Neil Gaiman, should provide both superb themes for discussion and a dose of humour. It will be especially high-impact if your class seems to have a lot of hardcore
rational science-types who disparage fiction, and/or if you have a few goth kids around the school.
Stalking by Joyce Carol Oates
Either The Devil May Care by Elizabeth Gilligan or The Curse of Beazoel by David D. Levine
Other Lovecrafties~
The Dunwich Horror
The Outsider
Pickman’s Model
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
at least one of the Herbert West- Reanimator series
Another Poe-ey
Masque of the Red Death
Finally a Bram Stoker one that’s a hilarious gross-out fest-
The Dualitists or the Death-Doom of the Double-Born