9 Scary Stories to Teach in October: Free Texts for Middle and High School
Nine free CommonLit texts for grades 6-12, from a nursery that makes its own lions to a headless horseman, plus what each one teaches best.
Every October, a student asks if you're doing anything for Halloween. You can say yes and still teach suspense, point of view, and theme.
These nine texts come from CommonLit's free Text Library, and they run from a family whose house won't stop making lions to a town that stones a neighbor on a summer morning. Four are labeled for middle school and five for high school. Each one comes with a specific skill to teach, and the last one pairs with any of the others. Pick one for a single lesson, or build a week of spooky season reading from several.
New to CommonLit? These lessons are free with an educator account. Sign up for one here.
Which scary stories work for middle school?
"Hope I Don't See a Ghost," "The Veldt," "The Wife's Story," and "Click Clack the Rattle Bag" are four 6th, 7th, and 8th Grade texts on CommonLit that cover suspense, dystopian fiction, point of view, and ambiguous endings. Each is free with an educator account.
"Hope I Don't See a Ghost" by R.L. Stine (6th Grade)
In this nonfiction text, R.L. Stine describes an encounter with his neighbor, who he later learns had already been dead for a week. It's great for teaching how an author builds suspense through word choice. Assessment Question 5 asks how foreshadowing is used in the story, and students can use the annotation tool to highlight the passages that back up their conclusions.
"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury (7th Grade)
Bradbury explores the dark side of modern technology. A family buys a house that uses the children's imaginations to create an interactive Sahara landscape, and soon the parents can't tell whether the lions are still just figments of imagination. Pair it with the informational text "Someone Might Be Watching – An Introduction to Dystopian Fiction" from the Paired Texts section of the lesson. Ask whether "The Veldt" could be dystopian fiction and how Bradbury explores the risks of technology. He wrote it in 1950, so are those risks still pertinent today?
"The Wife's Story" by Ursula K. Le Guin (8th Grade)
A woman falls in love with a good man, and they marry and raise a family. Slowly she notices her husband changing. One night she catches him mid-transition, and her family kills him. Only then does the reader realize the whole family is a pack of wolves, and the husband has been turning into a man. Use the assessment questions to start a discussion. Ask how Le Guin uses word choice to create suspense, and whether the suspense would change if the story were told in third person or from the husband's point of view.
"Click Clack the Rattle Bag" by Neil Gaiman (8th Grade)
The narrator is looking after his girlfriend's younger brother in a spooky house. The little boy tells him about Click Clacks, monsters that suck everything out of your body and then rattle your bones around. The ending is ambiguous, but readers can assume the Click Clacks got the narrator. Have students read the story on their own, then play the video of Neil Gaiman reading it aloud from the lesson's Related Media page. Did hearing Gaiman tell it change how the class perceived the story? Does the visual experience heighten or diminish the suspense?
Which scary stories work for high school?
"The Lottery," "The Cask of Amontillado," "Excerpt from Frankenstein: Chapter 16," and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" are four high school texts on CommonLit, labeled 9th, 11th, 11th, and 12th Grade, that cover conformity, revenge, point of view, and the difference between a legend and an allegory. Each is free with an educator account.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson (9th Grade)
A small town has a horrifying tradition. Every year one name is pulled, and the town gathers to stone the chosen person to death. It's an excellent text for a thematic unit on following the crowd, which can be pretty haunting too. Pair it with "The Dangers of Tradition" from the Paired Texts page, and ask whether the villagers have free will or even know why they participate. For more on the dangers of conformity, we encourage teachers to explore CommonLit 360, our free full-year curriculum. 9th grade kicks off with a ~5-7 week unit called "Following the Crowd” that asks students to engage with the question: Why do people follow the crowd and what happens when someone doesn’t?
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe (11th Grade)
An angry young man seeks revenge on his friend, Fortunato. He tricks Fortunato into the catacombs below the city, shackles him to a wall, and effectively buries him alive. The narrator insists his actions are justified, and that's what unsettles readers most. Ask the class if they believe him. Then use the discussion questions to ask whether revenge is ever justified, and have students cite evidence from the text that supports or disproves the claim. If your class gets hooked, browse more Edgar Allan Poe in the CommonLit library.
Excerpt from Frankenstein: Chapter 16 by Mary Shelley (11th Grade)
In the novel, the brilliant scientist Victor Frankenstein creates intelligent life in his laboratory, realizes he's made a mistake, and runs away. The monster vows to destroy Victor and his livelihood. In this excerpt, told from the monster's point of view, the monster finds Victor and voices his frustration. Have students consider why Shelley chose to tell this chapter from the monster's perspective, and use the annotation tool to note where the monster's characterization comes through.
Teaching the whole novel? A Book Pairing is a set of supplemental lessons, each built around a short story, poem, or nonfiction text, that CommonLit's team has matched to a specific novel. Every entry includes a summary and a "When and How to Pair" note explaining when and how to introduce it during the unit. The Book Pairing for Frankenstein has eight lessons in total, and our guide, How to Teach Frankenstein: A Full 5- to 7-Week Unit, Plus 5 Book Pairing Lessons, walks through both options.
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving (12th Grade)
This is the tale of a small town prone to superstition. Two men compete for the attention of a rich farmer's daughter. One night, one of the suitors, Ichabod, sees a supposedly headless horseman. By morning, Ichabod is nowhere to be found, and a smashed pumpkin and his hat are the only signs of trouble. Pair it with "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe from the Paired Texts page. After students read both, ask how fear manipulates the characters and the plot. Then discuss whether the texts are a "legend," a traditional story viewed as historical but not authenticated that usually teaches a lesson, or an "allegory," a story that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden lesson.
Which informational text pairs with scary stories?
"Why Is It Fun To Be Frightened" by Margee Kerr (9th Grade) pairs with any story in this list. Do your students want to learn more about the science of fear? This text gives them an answer for why some people enjoy being scared.
"Why Is It Fun To Be Frightened" by Margee Kerr (9th Grade)
Margee Kerr tries to answer the question in her title. She explains that people who have "fun-scary" experiences in safe settings have positive chemical reactions in their brains. This lesson blends science and English. Ask your class if they've ever felt positive emotions after a scary but safe situation, and let them share their spooky experiences. Do those feelings make more sense now that they've read the article?
What comes with a CommonLit text?
Every CommonLit text comes with the lesson built around it: questions, discussion prompts, an answer key, a teacher overview, paired texts, and related media, all free with an educator account. Take "The Veldt" as an example. Each text lists its grade level and Lexile score (7th Grade, Lexile: 600 here). Above the passage, a short note gives context about the author and the text, plus a prompt that tells students what to track as they read.
You get the passage and the materials to teach it in one place, and none of it needs building from scratch. Here's what else sits on the page at a teacher's fingertips:
- Teacher Overview: key themes, setting, important characters, and a beginning, middle, and end plot summary, so you can preview the text before you assign it.
- Guiding Questions, Assessment Questions, and Discussion: three tabs of ready-made questions and prompts in the activities panel.
- Paired Texts: Texts hand-selected by our curriculum team to keep the learning going. These texts come with a quick overview and suggestion for how to pair.
- Student tools: Read Aloud, Annotate, and Translate (30+ languages)
- Assigning options: assign it digitally via Google Classroom, Clever or Class Code. On most lessons, you can also download a PDF, and administer the full lesson to kids offline. The Veldt has copyright restrictions that prevent downloadable copies.
Next Steps
All nine texts are ready to assign. Create a free CommonLit account to unlock reading questions, assessment questions, answer keys, and paired texts for every lesson.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these scary stories free?
Yes. Every text in the CommonLit Text Library is free with an educator account, including reading questions, assessment questions, answer keys, and paired texts. Go to CommonLit.org, click "Sign Up," choose "I Am an Educator," and confirm your school email.
Are these authentic texts I can trust for my classroom?
Yes. An authentic text is writing by a real, published author rather than a passage written to fit a worksheet, and the CommonLit Text Library is built on them. The stories in this list come from Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, Ursula K. Le Guin, Neil Gaiman, and Washington Irving, and excerpts, like the Mary Shelley selection, are labeled as excerpts in the title. CommonLit's curriculum team curates the library and builds each lesson around the text, with reading questions, assessment questions, and an answer key, so the supports are ready when you are. CommonLit is a nonprofit, and every text here is free with an educator account.
Can I print these lessons?
Yes. Each text can be downloaded as a PDF or assigned digitally to students; excluding The Veldt. The Veldt’s copyright restrictions prevent downloadable copies.
What grade levels does the CommonLit Text Library cover?
The CommonLit Text Library includes lessons spanning grades 3-12. Once you log in to your free educator account, you can browse the 6th through 12th grade collection to find more stories like these.
Which of these scary stories work best for teaching suspense?
"Hope I Don't See a Ghost" and "The Wife's Story" both pair with questions about how word choice builds suspense. "Click Clack the Rattle Bag" adds another angle: students can compare reading the story on their own with watching Neil Gaiman read it aloud.
Why do people enjoy scary stories?
"Why Is It Fun To Be Frightened" by Margee Kerr (9th Grade) explains that people who have "fun-scary" experiences in safe settings have positive chemical reactions in their brains. It pairs with any story in this list.
