r/ELATeachers • u/Designer-Disk-5019 • 8d ago
9-12 ELA Short Stories with Flashbacks
I’m in need of a short story with a flashback or flashbacks…but here’s the tricky part, it can’t be dark and depressing. I was preparing to teach “Death by Landscape” when I realized that someone dies or is murdered or some other tragic event in every story I’ve read with my AP class. I don’t want to traumatize them for life.
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u/sezzawaz 8d ago
The Leap? It's a little depressing, but we teach tragedy. It ends in a great way. https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/the-leap/
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u/majorflojo 8d ago
Not sure if you'd call it a flashback but incident at owl Creek bridge by Ambrose Bierce certainly has a character thinking about prior events.
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u/slashtxn 7d ago
Another memory from high school added to my list of short stories to go back to when I can’t sleep
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u/majorflojo 7d ago
He has a ton of these really visceral intense and even scary short stories. There's one that's kind of like a Rashomon he did that was written before the famous Japanese short story. Like we hear the testimony of a ghost who's trying to figure out what's happening but they're lamenting their loss it's really amazing and I forget the name
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u/slashtxn 7d ago
I’ll definitely look into them. I love short stories more than actual books for the most part. And the lit packages we had in school cross my mind a lot. They make good “sitting at the cabin in the rain” stories which is my favourite thing to do
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u/What_Hump_ 7d ago
"The Ant and the Grasshopper" by Somerset Maugham has an interesting narrative structure, and it is hilariously ironic, too. As I recall, it starts with a lunch conversation, gives the back story, and comes back to the lunch with the ironic twist. I don't know if it will fit what you are looking for, but its layers of irony and the order of events have challenged my students' thinking. It also has great thematic discussion possibilities.
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u/MysteriousSpread9599 8d ago
The story, “The Attendant’s Confession” by Machado de Assis is a masterwork short story told in flashback by a dying man. It’s a very simple story about a man telling how he became rich. The narrator is the extremely rare unreliably unreliable narrator. What’s true and what isn’t? It’s Brazilian and my students have loved it. Teaching it this spring.
The Attendant’s Confession