Suspense Mini Unit

Item description

Are you short on time but want to teach suspense to your high school students? Use this READY TO GO mini unit to help students think critically about what keeps a reader engaged in a story and then practice their own suspense writing. The main focus text is season one of the narrative podcast Limetown and how the creators build suspense in this short 6-episode work. This unit usually takes about 3 weeks to complete. I personally love to use it during the month of October and use Halloween as a day to showcase student work!

Other texts analyzed: Masque of the Red Death, Bugs (Japanese short story), and a list of curated suspense/horror short stories from around the world to choose from and work with independently. Students also have several chilling writing prompts to practice building suspense on their own.

Be sure to check out the preview to take a peek!

Included:

• Unit Pacing Guide

• Limetown Active Listening Notes sheets (can also be found here here). There are two versions- one is a basic notes version and one is more detailed notes depending on your class needs.

• Vocabulary list

• Curated list of short texts from around the world

• Skills based assessment test

• Found Poetry “How To” Presentation

• PDF presentation of 3 creative narrative writing activities you can incorporate at any time for some suspenseful fun!

Writing Pieces: 

• 2 Sentence Horror Story Postcards  

• Suspenseful Found Poetry  

• 3 Super fun, spooky, narrative writing prompt activity

· Choice Options: 

• Group Podcast Episode  

• Creepy Poetry Art  

• Suspenseful Short Story   

What other teachers are saying:

Extremely satisfied

We started a short story unit in class a week ago, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Then I saw this unit and changed up what I was doing to an all horror/scary short story unit. The kids were so excited about the changes and are really getting into the material. We have just started with these materials, but there are so many different activities included. I can’t wait!!

Would you like to check out a more detailed look at how I use this in the classroom? Check out this blog post!

Copyright © Around the World With Mrs. C

Permission to copy for single classroom use only.

Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this product.