This book was awesome for a once-a-week, "Horrific Friday Bell-Ringer" in 7th grade ELA, or you could do one every day in October!

Each slip corresponds to a very short story and there are three slips per page. There are 35 slips. Use them as you wish.

The book has more than 70 short stories, and could easily be adapted for 35 more bell-ringers, but many stories I rejected as either too long (they took more than 1 minute to read) or too gruesome, based on my classes' maturity levels.

I bought a class copy of the books. Each Friday, I put them on students' desks. Students got a slip and found the story they were to read. We set a timer for 30 seconds, sometimes 1 minute (if the story was more than a page) and they read silently. They had 2-3 minutes to complete the one or two question Bell-Ringer.

Students then were given 1 minute to discuss their answers with their tablemates or a row partner - perhaps the "funnest" part of the exercise - and then I called on two or three to share out with the class.

My students loved doing these, and "Horrific Friday" became something they looked forward to!

The questions touch on ELA CC standards for point-of-view, citing textual evidence, figurative language, more!