Engaging Halloween Lessons for a Secondary Reading Classroom

There are so many fun activities that you can do with your students for Halloween and still teach your required curriculum.  Below you will find several activities to use whether you are teaching fiction, nonfiction, or poetry in your classroom.

Teaching Fiction

Middle school students love a good scary story.  Halloween is a great time to pull out all your old favorites, The Tell Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, etc.

A few lesser known scary stories that I love to read in my classroom are "The Coughing Dog" and "The White Dress."  Both of the stories are very short, easy to read and highly engaging.

The White Dress

"The White Dress" tells the story of a girl that needs a dress for an upcoming school dance, but she can't afford one.  While at a funeral, she notices a beautiful dress on a girl in a casket.  She decides to steal the dress and wear it to the dance.  Turns out the dress is cursed and one thing leads to another...

The story is great for analyzing plot, character and theme.  You can find the story here.

If you would like a full 2 - 3 day lesson plan for this story, you will find it here.

The Coughing Dog

"The Coughing Dog" is another great scary story that has an excellent cliffhanger that will drive the students crazy.  They will love it.  It is about a girl in her 20s that is living on her own.  She is a bit of a free spirit.   One day, she notices that her dog is coughing.  She takes her dog to the vet to find out what is wrong.  While she is waiting to hear back from the vet, she returns home and she discovers that things at home are not quite right.

This story is great for analyzing plot, character and character motivation, tone and point of view.  You can find the story here.

If you would like a full 2 - 3 day lesson plan for this story that includes story analysis questions, summary, even grammar, you will find it here.

Teaching Informational Texts

Main Idea Videos

One of my favorite activities to do with nonfiction texts is to work on writing main ideas using informational videos.  I find high interest Halloween videos and have students write the main ideas of them.  The video below not only teaches students fun ways to carve pumpkins, but is also great to use as an informational text.

This video is always hilarious.  We ate all your Halloween candy.

Evaluating Directions - Drawing a "Correct" Pumpkin

In this activity, students are told to follow the very simple instructions to create a pumpkin.  I tell them if they follow the directions, then their pumpkin will look just like mine and they will receive a 100.  However, the instructions are VERY vague and students will find it very difficult to do.  This activity is great for evaluating the usefulness of instructions.

I read the instructions several times.  Students attempt to follow the directions.  They will all ask for clarification on how to do it.  I resist the urge to give clarification, and tell them to do the best they can with the instructions they are given.  After the creation of the pumpkin, students are then shown the "correct" pumpkin.  (Their pumpkins will all look somewhat different because the instructions are so vague.)  Students are then asked to write better instructions to create the "correct" pumpkin.

It is very fun, but somewhat frustrating for the students.  However, the point of evaluating the instructions is made and the students love the activity.

You can find a link to this full activity here.

Teaching Poetry

There are quite a few well loved poems that work great around Halloween.  You can find several here.

One of my favorites is The Witch by Jack Prelutsky.  On the surface, this poem appears to be quite basic, but there is so much you can pull out of this poem.  The imagery of the witch is great.  There is quite a bit of figurative language.  There is even a regular rhyme scheme that the students are able to find.

I frequently use this poem in my classroom whether or not it is Halloween because this poem is so rich and easily digestible by middle school students.

You can find my entire lesson here.  The lesson works on vocabulary, reading fluency, text connections, paraphrasing and poetry analysis.

I hope this gives you some ideas about how to incorporate some fun lessons into your classroom, while still teaching your standards.

Happy Halloween!