After reading, ask students to craft their own science-fiction short story.
In class: This is perfect for introducing a new genre to students. Your students will laugh out loud when they discover that the aliens are talking about humans and love figuring out the everyday activities and items the aliens just can’t seem to make sense of. In this story, two aliens discuss the bizarre new life form they’ve discovered and try to figure out how it thinks and lives. We really don’t use it enough in our English classes. I love introducing students to science fiction. With that in mind, here’s a list of funny short stories to use in your classroom when you want to bring a bit of humor to your lesson. It turns out, while scary short stories and dramatic short stories are easy to find, good funny short stories for middle and high school students are a bit trickier to track down. While all are excellent, I began to wonder if I could find some different texts to add to the mix. “Romeo and Juliet,” Of Mice and Men, short stories like “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “The Most Dangerous Game” all told tales of death and despair.
A quick look at our curriculum revealed they did have a point. At least once a year, one of my freshmen would ask me why everything we read in ninth grade English was so depressing.
