Some Short Stories

I have a core of short stories I use in CyberEnglish. They are good stories for my scholars. Some of them are autobiographies, some are biographies, and some are just good fiction. Each use a plethora of literary tools. All of the stories provide the scholars with great stories of conflicts and problems with satisfying resolutions. They are good text to self stories about perseverance, problem solving, and reader identification with the characters in each story.

The scholars do some research before reading each story. In the cases of the autobiographies, the scholars are aware of who Richard Wright, Daniel K Inouye, and Matthew Henson are before reading. This research provides excellent context for the story they are about to read. The research they do for the biographies of George Washington Carver and Nathan Hale helps the scholars appreciate the small piece of this person's life they are about to read. The fictional pieces provide a good introduction to different neighborhoods.

I selected these short stories many years ago. As I was beginning to work with technology and before scanners were available, I had the scholars type the stories so I would have them digitized. With the digitized stories I was able to use three computer programs to provide the scholars with a series of reading exercises. The first computer program would present the story in a colorful way. The program allowed the scholars to play with the text and color presentation and to even have the program pace the reading. Once the reading was complete the scholar moved on to a program that worked as a study guide. The scholars would be given short excerpts from the story and then asked questions about the passage. The questions would be the same type of questions I'd ask in class. In this way of presenting the stories, all of the scholars did the work, not just a few as in a typical class. In addition each scholar could work at hir own pace. The third program quizzed the scholars. The neat features of this program was that I could create 20 questions and use 10 or any number of questions. No two scholars got the same quiz since each question is randomized and the answers are scrambled. The scholars move through these three programs at their own pace and repeat them as they desire. The programs record what the scholar does so I can conference with each scholar with this data. Once they have completed these three programs they write an essay.

I have used these stories as the core for CyberEnglish.