USE OF SHORT STORIES

FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING

PURPOSES
DR. ŞEYMA YILDIRIM
2023
■ What is a short story? What are the characteristics of a
short story?
■ What are the important elements in a short story?
■ The evolution of the short story first began before man could write.
Short stories date back to oral storytelling traditions through which
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were produced.

■ In order to keep tales in mind, the early storytellers used stock

phrases, fixed rhythms and rhyme.

■ As a result, many of the oldest narratives in the world, such as the

famous Babylonian tale The Epic of Gilgamesh (c.2000 BC) are all in
verse.
■ In Europe, the oral story-telling tradition began to develop into written
stories in the early 14th century, most notably with Geoffrey Chaucer's
"Canterbury Tales" and Giovanni Boccaccio's "Decameron".

■ Both of these books are composed of individual short stories. Even

though there are early examples of short stories that were published
before, the first true collections of short stories appeared between
1810 and 1830.
■ In the United Kingdom, the first short stories were gothic tales such as
Richard Cumberland's The Prisoner of Montremos".

■ In the US,
– Charles Brokden Brown's "Somnambulism",
– Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales"
– Edgar Allan Poe's tales of mystery and imagination such as "The Tell-
Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado” and the first detective story
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
were the first examples.
IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF SHORT
STORIES
A) PLOT: Plot refers to the sequence of the events in a short story. The structure of the
plot has got five main parts:
a. Exposition: It is the part, which readers read firstly in the story. Setting, characters
and the situation are introduced to the readers.
b. Rising action: The event that introduces the conflict in the story is given to the
readers. It can be either internal conflict or external conflict.
c. Climax: This is the part in which there is most action. This is the point of highest
excitement and interest.
d. Falling action: After the climax part, the amount of excitement starts to decrease
and it starts to reach a conclusion. This part is called "falling action".
e. Resolution or denouement: This part is where the conflict in the story is resolved
and it reaches a conclusion.
 climax

rising action falling action

exposition denouement
■ It is important to remember that not all stories obey this plot structure.
Especially the ones that belong to the Modern Period in literature do
not follow this traditional plot structure.

■ Authors usually benefit from special techniques of plot to be able to

present a vivid and striking style. The most common ones are:

a. Suspense: Excitement or suspense in the story

b. Foreshadowing: Hints or clues related to what will happen in the story.
c. Flashback: Flashbacks interrupt the normal sequence of the events to
tell about something that happened in the past
d. Surprise ending: A conclusion that the reader does not expect through
the author's use of irony
B) CHARACTERS: Characters are one of the most important elements in a
short story. All the events in the stories revolve around them.
Characters are named according to the features they display in the story.
The main character in the story is called "protagonist".
Generally, protagonist is in conflict with "antagonist”.
Main characters are also called "major or central characters", which are
crucial to the development and resolution of the conflict.
The other characters that have less significant roles in the story are
"minor characters".
CHARACTER TYPES DEFINITION

DYNAMIC grows and changes in some significant

manner by the end of the story

STATIC changes a little or none throughout the

story
ROUND refers to characters that show many
different traits like faults and virtues

FLAT refers to characters that are known to

readers as one type of person —the
readers meet only one side

STOCK CHARACTERS Conventional characters that appear

repeatedly in different stories. They are
also named as stereotypes.
C) SETTING: Setting of a story includes the elements of time and place.
It prepares the readers for what they are going to read afterwards and it
provides the readers with the background for the story.
Setting of a story might include such details as time of the day, time of
the year, weather, scenery, furniture, etc.
D) POINT-OF-VIEW: It refers to the position from which a story is told or
the perspectives from which events are seen. As Bonavoglia (2006)
suggests it may take different forms depending on the author's choice:
a. First-person point of view: tells the story as a protagonist or reports the
events s/he has witnessed.
b. Third-person point of view: narrates the events from a third person's
point of view. It can be omniscient, non-omniscient or an external
eyewitness. The omniscient narrator knows everything about the
characters. The non-omniscient narrator tells the story from a limited
perspective. The external eyewitness reports only what can be seen from
the outside and does not have access to the characters' thoughts. The
third person point of view might also be intrusive, intervening in the
narrative with comments and opinions or unintrusive, avoiding explicit
comments.
E) STYLE: It refers to how a particular writer says things: his word choice,
the figures of speech used such as simile, metaphor, irony, symbols, etc.,
and the sentence structure.

F) THEME: It is the central message that is expressed through the literary

work. It is either directly stated or implied by the author.
ADVANTAGES OF USING SHORT STORIES IN
THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
■ Aydınoğlu (2008) suggested that as a literary form, short stories are
the most suitable literary forms for classroom use because they share
the same characteristics with longer literary works but they are short
enough for the course period that is very limited.
■ Erkaya (2005) mentions the following benefits of using short stories in
the ELT classroom:
a. Short stories allow instructors to teach four skills to learners of
different proficiency levels
b. They can be used to improve learners' vocabulary and grammar.
c. Short stories contribute positively to students' motivation as students
will continue reading until they find out what will happen at the end of
the story. Another motivational factor is related to the various themes
which will appeal to different interests these stories possess.
d. Students become knowledgeable about the culture of the target
community through the cultural concepts the author dealt with in the
story.
e. Students will need to analyze what they have read in the short stories,
reach conclusions, and predict what is going to happen next; as a result,
their critical thinking skills and cognitive abilities will improve.
■ In the following part of this chapter, some sample activities to be used
in the classroom with the short stories are presented. They will be
analyzed under three main titles, namely:
■ 1. Pre-reading (Before-reading) activities
■ 2. While-reading (During-reading) activities
■ 3. Post-reading (After-reading) activities
■ PART A: Pre-Reading
This step of the course includes the period when students haven't started
the story yet. Grabe & Stoller (2001, p.191) claim that pre-reading
activities:
• help students access background information that can facilitate
subsequent reading,
• provide specific information needed for successful comprehension,
• stimulate student interest,
• set up student expectations
• model strategies that students can later use on their own.
■ In this part, teachers ask questions and students try to make
predictions. Depending on the needs of students and/or preferences
of the teacher, the activities in this preparatory session might focus on
the language (grammar, vocabulary, etc.), the content of the story or
both. For this part, Lazar (1993, p.83) suggests including activities
related to the following titles:
• Helping students with cultural background
• Stimulating student interest in the story
• Pre-teaching vocabulary
■ PART B: While-reading
This stage of the course includes what students will be doing while they are
reading the text. The instruction given in this part "guides students through the
text, often focusing on understanding difficult concepts, making sense of
complex sentences, considering relationships among ideas or characters in the
text, and reading purposefully and strategically" (Grabe & Stoller, 2001, p.191).
One of the most commonly used activities by many teachers around the world
is asking comprehension questions. For this part, Lazar (1993, p.83) thinks
that activities related to the following parts might be appropriate:
• Helping students to understand the plot
• Helping students to understand the characters
• Helping students with difficult vocabulary
• Helping students with style and language
■ PART C: Post-reading
This stage of the lesson is composed of activities students will do after
they have finished reading the story. This part "extends ideas and
information from the text while also ensuring that the major ideas and
supporting information are well understood" (Grabe & Stoller (2001,
p.191). The activities used in this part are often related to using the
information gathered from the text for other tasks. Lazar (1993, p.83)
claims that activities associated with the following titles might be used:
• Helping students to make interpretations of the text
• Understanding narrative point of view
• Follow-up writing activities
• Follow-up fluency practice
This pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading cycle could be easily
used in different learning contexts. With inexperienced readers, it is a
good idea for teachers to benefit from "Think Aloud", which is a wonderful
metacognitive strategy.
Students are shown what experienced readers do when reading with the
help of this strategy.
The teacher verbalizes aloud while reading a specific part and illustrates
which clues he/she benefits from, what connections he/she uses and
how to cope with unknown vocabulary items while trying to understand
the text.