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Bite-Size Literature: Short Stories for 7th - 9th Graders (7th-9th grade)

"Bite-Size Literature: Short Stories for 7th - 9th Graders" is an online literature class for high school freshmen and advanced middle school students. Over the course of the year, students will read and analyze approximately 30 classic and contemporary short stories from around the world.

To give students a sense of the class, here are short excerpts from some of our reading.

"You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war, is it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started out to do something in it but didn't?" (Mark Twain)

"Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then." (Ursula LeGuin)

"She began to unwrap the presents, with an air that not even Gladys could have bettered, folding the tissue paper and the ribbons, and drawing out books and puzzles and cutouts as if they were all prizes she had won." (Alice Munro)

"The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enormous wings." (Gabriel García Márquez)

"She turned the paper over and folded it again. She pleated, packed, tucked, rolled, and twisted until the paper disappeared between her cupped hands. Then she lifted the folded-up paper packet to her mouth and blew into it, like a balloon." (Ken Liu)

"We were down South, in Alabama--Bill Driscoll and myself--when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, 'during a moment of temporary mental apparition'; but we didn't find that out till later." (O. Henry)

"She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her." (Guy de Maupassant)

"Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. 'There's a unicorn in the garden,' he said. 'Eating roses.' She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him." (James Thurber)

To receive a $25 discount on this or any 2020 class -- summer or fall! -- be sure to fill this out and hit "submit" below by July 1.

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Have you ever read a short story before? If so, do you remember the title or anything about it? *

What would *you* do if you looked out and saw a unicorn in the garden, eating roses? *

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You can find out more about "Bite-Size Literature: Short Stories for 7th - 9th Graders" here.

Class Sampler