SLD Booklet

8/13/2019 SLD Booklet

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Teaching English Through Short Stories

A Toolkit for 2014 BABEd Class


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Stage 1 Language Focus: READING (9 periods)- Identify and understand key featuresof a shortstory

- Read short stories with appreciation

Stage 2 Language Focus: WRITING (21 periods)

- Write specific aspectsof a short story

- Gather ideasand produce drafts

Stage 3 Language Focus: SPEAKING (20periods)

- Practice oral and story telling skills

- Performtheir own stories to the class

General Flow of the Module

It introduces learners to the world of short stories, encouraging them to read, writeand tellthem.

What EDB say about the module


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Possible Teaching Ideas

Horror Story Love Story

Detective Story Ghost Story

Fairy Story Fable

Science Fiction Adventure Story

Teachers may give some extracts of the story to students to let them match / distinguish the

story type.For instance,

Horror Story

A strange noise emerged, faint but still strong enough to leak

through the walls of the room I stood in. At first I mistook it

for my struggle to regain my breath. However, this noise

grew clearer and louder and I realised they were the

whispers of a woman, a woman looking for revenge.

Adventure Story

She fell asleep, thinking of the long weary miles still to be

traveled, and even greater dangers, now that she had come into

the region where the Arabs were fighting their Turkish masters.

Teachers may focus on the vocabulary and language structure which may be central to the

reading and writing of the story type.

E.g. For horror story, teachers may like to focus more on the adverbs of movement and

narrative tenses.

Types of Short Stories


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Possible Teaching Ideas

OpeningThe first few sentences, which usually arouse curiosity, pull the

reader in and carry compressed information in short stories.

Exposition

At the start of the story, the setting, situation and main characters

up to now are introduced (though not used as much in short

stories as in novels)

Characterization The process of creating and developing characters

Plot

A planned, logical series of events having a beginning, middle,

and end. The short story usually has one plot so it can be read in

one sitting

DialogueSpeech used for moving the story forward, though some dialogue

can be redundant

Narrative Describes a sequence of events.

SymbolAn enhancement tool to stress the theme of a story, e.g. a dog

can symbolise loyalty.

Complication An event that introduces conflict.

Rising action Action that leads to a crisis.

Conflict

This is essential to a storyline. Without conflict there is no plot. It

is the opposition of forces which ties one incident t another and

makes the plot move. Within a short story there may be only one

central struggle, or there may be one dominant struggle with

many minor ones.

ClimaxThe point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point

of the story with the most action.

Falling action When events and complication begin to resolve themselves.

Resolution The point of the story when the conflict is resolved.

TwistAn unexpected final paragraph which shatters readers

perceptions.

Closing The last paragraph of the story.

Moral

The message conveyed or a lesson to be learn from a storye.g.

fairy stories often have a moral about distrusting people who

appear to be trustworthy.

Features of Short Stories


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Teachers may ask students to identify any of the featuresabove in the short stories.

(Note: Not all short stories would possess all the above features.)

Teachers may also first focus practicing students writing skills in some of the above

featuresbefore asking them to write the whole story.

Teachers may also want to raise the issue of how to create a more interesting opening /

closing of a short story.

Possible Strategies for Opening a Short Story

1. Dropping the reader into the middle of the dramatic action.

2. A quoteor dialogue to make the reader ask questionsWhos this? What are they

saying? Why are they saying it?

3. A shocking statementThe telephone rang. He picked it up. The voice at the end

told him to run. To run now. To not stop running.

4. Mirroror circular openings/closingswhere each mirrors the other.

(opening) The young boy looked out of the window and wondered What am I doing

here?(Closing) The young boy looked out of the window and finally knew why he

was there.

5. An Intriguing opening that makes you wonderWhy? Whats happening here?

To encourage students creativity, teachers may ask students to create their own opening /

the ending of a given story.

There are certain endings which students are tempted to use:

E.g. they realized that it was a dream,

all of them were dead

Teachers may ask students never to end their stories with similar

phrases, which can eliminate lots of dull conclusions.


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Pre-Reading Stage

While-Reading Stage Post-Reading Stage

Improvision

- Teacher may provide students a context or setting which may be similar to the one in

the short story, then ask students how they would react and what they would do.

Students can also role-play without knowing the story.

Students may share their improvision with the other groups.

- This may help students enter imaginatively into the situation in the story and also allowthem to discuss the book obliquely by talking about their personal experience in the

improvision.

Using Contemporary Reference

- Teachers may relate the story to contemporary events using newspaper articles.Students are encouraged to notice any allegorical correspondences or contemporary

relevance.

- This may raise studentsinterest in the discussion of the relevance of the story to

contemporary events.

Stylistics (Use with )

- Stylistics concern how certain linguistic forms (e.g. syntax, morphology and lexis) work

within a text, and how they affect readers understanding or interpretation.

- Teachers may try to manipulate the language (e.g. change some of the words or

sentences) in the short stories and let students discover the differences it have on the

text.

! Stylistics SHOULD NOT be the major focus of this elective module. The aim of

incorporating stylistics is solely for cultivating students interestin the use of real

language. It can be cognitively demanding for lower achievers, but can be

interesting and challenging for some higher achievers.

Other Teaching ActivitiesIdea adapted from various references


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Writing Stage

Role-play

- Students are given a role to play from a text in a situation that either has occurred in

the text or is not described explicitly. This can be followed by a feedback session to

allow students to discuss the character.

- It enables students to experience events in the book more directly, as well as

providing interesting writing exercises in transposing one literary form to another.

Filling the Loophole

- Usually short stories would tell the ending of the protagonists or some othercharacters. However, there are cases in which some of the less important characters

may be missed out at the end of the story.

- Teachers may exploit this opportunity to let students create the story of these missed

out characters what happen on them afterwards?

Five Rules of DONT


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DON'T

Abuse the stories

to teach grammaror vocabulary

Smother studentswith worksheets

which ask students

to carry out dulltasks, e.g.comprehension

questions

Showing off howmuch you knowabout the storywithout getting

students to makediscoveries

Force students toformulate a

responses beforethey are ready to

share theirpersonal feelings in

class

Boil the texts into

moral lesson aboutlife


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DO

Make thecultural

backgroundmore accessible

to students

Preparestudents for alist of words

likely to be ofdifficulty in the

story

Justify the

length of thestory and timestudents need

to finish reading

Encourage

students tomake readerresponses in

either spoken orwritten form

Enable studentsto make

discovery fromthe story (either

language ormeaning)

Five Rules of DO


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Paper 1 Reading

Below are some questions taken from the public examination which may let you think about

training students with the necessary skills through this elective module.

(HKDSE 2012 English Language Paper 1 Question 14)

HKDSE Questions


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Skills Involved: Inferring characters thought, stance or opinions; skimming


Skills Involved: Critical thinking


Skills involved: Skimming and noticing cohesive device to understand the chronological order of

events.


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Paper 2 Writing



Skills Involved: Understanding metaphors and similes

(HKDSE 2012 English Language Paper 2 Part B Question 7)


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Documents

SLD Booklet