As a Middle School ELA teacher, finding great short stories for students can be challenging, and so can lesson planning. That is why we made the LYS Classroom App. You can save up to 50% of your lesson planning time. We also decided to list some of our favorite books and authors to share with you! Here are some of the top stories that we found. We hope that this helps you empower and enrich your students and that it makes your life a bit easier as well:

1. Bluford stories series
2. Examination Day
3. The Lottery
4. Charles
5. Treasure of Lemon Brown by Walter Dean Myers 
6. Thank You, Ma’am, by Langston Hughes
7. The Landlady
8. Trifles
9. Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston
10. Little Things Are Big
11. Gate A-4
12. Black Enough
13. Look Both Ways
14. Wildfire
15. Desire’s baby
16. Doris is coming
17. The Circuit!
18. User Friendly
19. The Bracelet
20. The Ransom of Red Chief, 
21. The Casque of Amontillado
22. Flowers for Algernon
23. Diary of Anne Frank
24. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (also a Twilight Zone episode)
25. Aida
26. Seed folks
27. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Rod Serling adaptation
28. All Summer in a Day
29. The Elevator
30. The Monkey’s Paw
31. The Hitchhiker
32. Tell-Tale Heart
33. Seventh Grade by Gary Soto
34. Old Glory by Bruce Coville
35. Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut
36. Third Wish (pair it with Monkey’s Paw)
37. Fish Cheeks
38. Eleven
39. Salvador Late or Early
40. Masque of the Red Death
41. The Black Cat
42. An Open Heart
43. A Rose for Emily
44. Three Brothers (Harry Potter)
45. The Veldt
46. Sound of Thunder
47. The Pedestrian (Ray Bradbury)
48. Death by Scrabble
49. Fish Cheeks by Amy Tan
50. Get chopsticks too

Here are some of our favorite authors!

1. Sharon G. Flakes’ stories
2. Ray Bradbury
3. Gary Soto
4. Bruce Coville
5. Roald Dahl
6. Walter Dean Myers
7. Langston Hughes

We know there are many enjoyable books, but here are just a few of our top recommendations. They pair well with the Laddering Your Success Classroom App. Imagine making lessons rooted in character which are relevant and empowering your students to pursue their passions and purpose while reading these great titles. We hope this helps you, especially if you are a first-year teacher or just someone trying to lighten the load of lesson planning.