Hans Christian Andersen's Short Stories - Quizzes, Games and Analysis Activities

This short story bundle includes vocabulary games, comprehension quizzes, and close reading inference worksheets to ensure middle and high school students can read with a purpose and practice critical thinking and literary analysis skills. Four narratives, each written by Hans Christian Andersen, are featured: "The Little Mermaid," "The Emperor's New Clothes," and "The Ugly Duckling," and "The Buckwheat." Answer keys and copies of the public domain texts are included. Materials are delivered in editable Word Document and printable PDF formats. (Alternatively, a Google Drive option is available.) By engaging with these activities, students will:

• Read for literal comprehension

• Utilize dictionaries to ensure knowledge of word meanings

• Discern the most proper application of words as they are used in sentences

• Infer the intended effects of the author's word choices and narrative techniques

• Determine the functions of given excerpts

• Describe tone in context

• Explore how complex characters think, behave, interact, and develop

• Apply knowledge of literary devices including alliteration, consonance, sibilance, foreshadowing, situational irony, dramatic irony, metaphor, personification, inversion, hyperbole, and hubris

• Consider themes in context

• Support claims and inferences with sound reasoning and relevant evidence

• Write about fiction with clarity, accuracy, and precision

• Come to class better prepared to discuss literature

Resources are available for teaching short stories of various genres:

• Christmas Fiction - Google and printable

• Coming-of-Age Fiction - Google and printable

• Fantasy - Google and printable

• Horror - Google and printable

• Psychological Fiction - Google and printable

• Science Fiction - Google and printable

• Thematic Short Story Unit on Fear and Curiosity - Google and printable