Poems about pumpkins and falling leaf imagery may have been able to cut it in elementary school, but it’s harder to stay festive when you’re lesson planning for Halloween for a class full of teenagers. Whether you’re in the middle of a Suspense Unit or you’re just looking for a quick spooky activity, here are my go-to Halloween lesson ideas.
Alfred Hitchcock- How to Create Suspense
I’m starting off strong with my favorite tried and true suspense lesson. In a world of jump scares and cheap shocks, let Alfred Hitchcock teach your students how to REALLY get under the audience’s skin. A director before your class’s time, whose strategies are used in countless thrillers and horror movies today, your students will read about how the key to his success is all about “letting the audience play God.” Instead of a writing assignment or test, your student’s culminating task is to create a “How-To” guide for creating suspense, based on the advice from Alfred Hitchcock in the essay “Let ‘Em Play God.”
Stranger Things Subtitles
If you tuned in this summer to catch the latest season of Stranger Things, then maybe you noticed that the subtitles this season were a little more…descriptive than what you’re used to. After reading an interview with the writers behind the viral subtitles, students will break down the words and descriptions used and the effect on the audience.
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Tell-Tale Heart Sketchnotes
No matter what you plan on doing with the story, this is a PERFECT way to start it, especially if you make this your “day of Halloween” lesson for your secondary English classroom. Dim the lights, put a creepy old house scene on your Smartboard, and play the audiobook reading while your students follow along and “sketch” while they listen to the creepy retelling of this classic horror story.
Sketchnoting is so much more than doodling! This resource outlines EXACTLY what your students should be doing while they listen to the story. Yes, that’s right! For this activity, students are PURELY listening—not following along with the text. At least not yet. Something about the fact that students are not tethered to words on a page also makes the first “read” a much more visceral experience.
I love seeing watching students’ reactions as they slowly listen to the narrator’s sanity unravel and I’m always impressed with their “sketches”. You will get great material for an end-of-story discussion before you dive into the many literary elements of this classic Poe story.
Spongebob’s Squeaky Boots and Edgar Allan Poe
This one’s a little more of a “treat” than a “trick” but regardless your students will be engaged! It’s a great way to wrap up this short story so save it for once you’re done with your learning goals/assessment.
One of the most popular episodes of Spongebob Squarepants was directly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe! This one-day lesson is perfect for engaging your students while simultaneously reinforcing the discussions and analysis of the text. Students will follow along with the episode, noting the similarities between the cartoon and the short story as they watch. Follow-up questions will ask them to further explain their examples, dive deep into character analysis, and provide an opportunity to write their own “Poe-inspired” scene for the cartoon.
Suspense Haunted House
I used to teach a “suspense story” creative writing unit which I always tried to line up with Halloween. The thing is, I got tired of reading about creaky doors, dark forests, and characters whose “hearts were beating out of their chest.” Students weren’t building suspense, they were throwing a bunch of “scary” imagery and cliche’s on the paper and hoping that it would manifest into some sort of monster. Well, it was usually a failed Frankenstein.
It ended up being this tweet that caught my attention and ultimately inspired my lesson.
To get my students to think outside the box, I gave them a challenge- create a Halloween Haunted house WITHOUT using ANY haunted house “cliches.” Suspense does NOT have to be full of wicked witches and monsters- it’s about being on the edge of your seat in anticipation of what’s going to happen next. We’re talking nerve-wracking, patience-testing anxiety. There are SO many “suspenseful” situations in everyday life that do not need spiders and snakes and chainsaws…(oh my!).
Whether it’s solving a puzzle of tangled earbuds or having to run a mile with wet socks on, there are plenty of experiences that are even scarier than what you might find in your town’s haunted house exhibit this year.
Give your students a chance to be creative while using their imagination to create a true nightmare experience this Halloween.
