Given her popularity in current popular culture, Margaret Atwood is an author our students should know. It mocks many of the most common elements of typical detective stories in a truly hilarious fashion. This is a perfect piece to introduce satire. In class: I wish I still taught the mystery unit I taught for many years so that I could add this funny short story to the mix. Over-the-top costumes, mistaken identities, and a ridiculous reveal make this a truly funny short story to share with your students. This short story caper takes on the classic detective trope and mocks it mercilessly. Maddened by Mystery or The Defective Detective by Stephen Leacock As an introduction to satire, pairing this piece with actual news reports of cases where privileged young people have received shockingly light sentences for serious crimes will definitely keep your students engaged (and enraged?). If your group isn’t quite ready for Swift’s A Modest Proposal, this is a great place to start. In class: This piece is perfect for students who aren’t ready to grapple with some of the more complex satirical pieces they’re often given in school. Some satirical pieces are almost too serious for students to see as satire, but this one does a great job of taking a serious subject and turning it on its head to make a point.

In the article, students learn the plight of a young man who almost received severe consequences for driving while under the influence. The popular satirical online news magazine The Onion comes to the rescue here with a hysterical piece that, while not a short story exactly, certainly tells a tale students will guffaw over. Satire is a tough genre for so many students.

Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequence by The Onion Staff The story also makes use of flashbacks, making it great for introducing or reviewing that concept. In class: Indirect characterization leaps to the foreground in this funny short story as students can debate whether Lord Oakhurst’s wife is truly as sad as she says she is throughout the story. Your students will be shocked and amused by this quick read. Lord Oakhurst is dying, his wife is grieving (or is she?), and a doctor arrives to try to help. While many students will have read “The Gift of the Magi,” this short story by the same author is much less well known. I’ve also used this story to show students how an author can utilize dialogue as a method for developing characterization. In class: Perfect for lessons on irony, your students can debate whether Jackson’s funny short story demonstrates verbal, situational, or dramatic irony. The twist at the end of the tale will make students gasp and giggle. The tale of the worst kindergarten student ever, as told by a student in the same class to his mother at the end of every school day, your students will love hearing all about Charles’s antics. Written by the same woman who wrote the eerie short story “The Lottery,” this story is guaranteed to make students of all ages chuckle. Then, ask students to write their version of an alien race trying to figure out a birthday party, after-school detention, or lunch in the school cafeteria. As a class, brainstorm a list of activities of events that take place all the time that we think are totally normal. After reading, ask students to craft their own science-fiction short story. In class: This is perfect for introducing a new genre to students. Your students will laugh out loud when they discover that the aliens are talking about humans and love figuring out the everyday activities and items the aliens just can’t seem to make sense of. In this story, two aliens discuss the bizarre new life form they’ve discovered and try to figure out how it thinks and lives. We really don’t use it enough in our English classes. I love introducing students to science fiction. With that in mind, here’s a list of funny short stories to use in your classroom when you want to bring a bit of humor to your lesson. It turns out, while scary short stories and dramatic short stories are easy to find, good funny short stories for middle and high school students are a bit trickier to track down.

While all are excellent, I began to wonder if I could find some different texts to add to the mix.

“Romeo and Juliet,” Of Mice and Men, short stories like “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “The Most Dangerous Game” all told tales of death and despair. A quick look at our curriculum revealed they did have a point. At least once a year, one of my freshmen would ask me why everything we read in ninth grade English was so depressing.

Joke for middle schoolers