· Turn off the lights and create a “flashlight campfire” to sit around while telling stories
· Have students illustrate their own ghost stories
· Make Haunted by History; Spectres in a Small Town available for student reading
· Visit Big Woods Cemetery for graves of Revolutionary War veterans
· Make a list of students favorite scary books
· Show pictures of historic people and brainstorm what kind of ghosts they might be
· Visit the Naperville Libraries’ local history reference section
· Invite Kate to read a ghost story to the class
· Collect ghost story books for classroom reading
· Compile students’ ghost stories into a class book
· Invite Kate to hear your students read their ghost stories
· Create “ghost” pictures from different time periods and have students deduce the era
· Visit the Naper Settlement
· Brainstorm things that are scary
· Have students read their finished stories to each other
· Invite Kate to speak to your students about the writing process
· Have students bring in favorite ghost story books to share
· Show pictures of local historic places and brainstorm what ghosts might haunt them
· Visit Naperville Cemetery for graves of early settlers
· Invite Kate to speak to your students about local history
· Read ghost stories to your class
· Practice keyboard skills by having students type their stories on the computer
· Invite Kate to conduct a writing workshop
· Read the beginning of a ghost story and have the students write their own endings
· Take a walking tour of historic Naperville
· Make a list of scary verbs and terrifying adjectives
· Diagram a short ghost story and analyze what makes it scary
· Invite Kate to review students’ ghost stories online or in person
· Visit Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery
· Have students read their stories to partners from another class
· Let students experiment with Photoshop techniques to create ghostly pictures
· Have students correspond with Kate via email or letters
· Write a collaborative story in which each student adds a couple of paragraphs in turn
· Brainstorm a list of settings, conflicts and characters from the students’ curriculum and have them create a ghost story that incorporates them
Copyright Gnu Ventures Company 2009