Writing Halloween Stories with my students has become a yearly tradition. My students absolutely love when we write Halloween stories. Many of my former students see my posts of Halloween decor every year, and they tell me how much they loved writing their scary stories.
How the Writing Halloween Stories tradition began
In about my 10th year of teaching, I switched middle schools to work with an absolutely amazing principal. Dr. Knobl was my assistant principal at my previous school. He’d told me to call him if I ever wanted to work at his school. So, I did. He told me he had ONE definite position, working with at-risk 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. Although I knew this would be a challenge, I applied for and accepted the position. For months I struggled to get my students to write more than a couple of sentences. We practiced mind mapping and list making writing strategies before writing, but my students still resisted writing anything more than a paragraph.
Then, just before Halloween, during one of these mind mapping sessions, students started talking about scary movies they’d seen. They were so animated about their conversation. That’s when I had an epiphany. My students should write scary stories. To prepare them, I read a couple of scary stories as mentor texts. But I felt this was not enough to get these particular students writing anything longer than a paragraph. I needed to set the scene for them – I needed to inspire them.
1st Halloween room transformation
On October 30th, after school, I transformed my entire classroom. I hung scene setters and other props that I bought from Spirit Halloween, and I made other scenes as well. Whatever could not be decorated, I covered with spider webbing. (I cleaned up fake spider webs for months!) Then, I found this awesome soundtrack by Midnight Syndicate, which you can now listen to on YouTube. I hung twinkle lights around my white board and along the back wall of my classroom, and turned off the main lights.
My classroom still had ONE fluorescent light that never turned off, so students could still see to write. On Halloween, before my students entered the room, I put out two pieces of notebook paper and a pencil on every desk (every period). I started the spooky music and then opened my door. I said, something like “Beware all ye who enter here…”
When students walked into my classroom, they oohed and awed and took a while to settle down. I loved seeing them so excited to be inside our classroom. Once they took their seats, I told them to let the music and the room inspire them to write their own spooky tales. Then, I sat down at one of the student desks and began writing. I let them see me work as a writer, shutting out everything else in the room and just writing.
They soon did the same. Some of them tried to come over to me to ask what to write about, and I pointed to the white board where I’d written “Let the room inspire you to write your Halloween story.” I kept writing. By the end of the period, most of them had filled up at least one of the two pieces of paper I put on each desk, and some even wrote on the second page, too.
Even more magical than my students all writing is when one student asked, “When can we share these?”
How writing Halloween stories has evolved
Writing Halloween stories became a yearly tradition in my classroom. My students love it, even though I’ve taught different groups throughout the years since that first year of teaching at-risk students. I’ve even self-published my Halloween stories that I wrote with my students on Amazon Kindle.
Now, a few days before Halloween, we read some Edgar Allan Poe, and I read aloud from my After Midnight collection. We discuss what readers expect from a scary story. Also, we talk about how scary stories do not end always well for the protagonist. Sometimes, the “monster” wins.
As the years passed, I realized that students often write much better stories if they get the chance to do some planning before the spooky day. So, I give students a sensory word list, and I tell them to think about a scary place and create a mood. Then, I tell them to have something or someone moving around in that space. Then, they describe this in several snapshot sentences. This gets them started.
Students can either continue writing from this description or you can have them brainstorm more about what will happen to their characters with this organizer:
Writing halloween stories in the classroom
1) A student does NOT have to stay in my room when it is decorated. I tell them, if this triggers you in any way, or it is against your religion, you may go to the media center and write a story for a couple of days.
2) Writing a scary story is never required. Students can write about fear or some other topic instead.
3) I do set limits of how gory things can be.
4) Also, students cannot write about a mass shooter or murderer.
A few days before Halloween, usually on my planning day before Halloween, I decorate my room with the help of my beautiful daughter, Erin. We transform the room into a spooky place that inspires ghouls and goblins, monsters and ghosts.
Here’s a few pictures of my classroom this year. Most of my stuff I bought at the dollar tree or made. For instance, this wall took 3 castle backgrounds, 2 flying ghouls, 3 pictures, and 3 pieces of old armor equaled a whopping $12. I made the sconces from rolled up butcher paper from my media center – so that was free.
To create the bottles, I just made silly labels like Tears of Frog or Monster Slobber and then glued them to the colorful bottles that I also bought from Dollar Tree for $4 total. The candles also came from Dollar tree as well as the black cauldron and the eyeballs. The fingers came from another store (I can’t remember ) and the big rat came from Spirit Halloween. The grave cloth all came from Dollar Tree. I think I spent a total of $30 at Dollar Tree and I reuse a lot of these year after year. The witch’s cauldron is stuffed with spider webs that my daughter colored green with a marker.
Lesson Plans and Printables for Writing Halloween Stories
Happy Halloween Writing!