Say What? Foreshadowing Humor

So we were covering foreshadowing this week and last week. 

This is probably one of my favorite things to teach for a few reasons. 

1. It is one of the first prezis that I made and I guess there is a little nostalgia.

2. I have a dark sense of humor and being so I get to pull out my favorite dark stories!

3. Every year the kids mock one of the songs I use to teach foreshadowing "Buenos Tardes Amigo" which is, granted, a really weird song. However, by the end of the song they GET IT and they end up quoting it for the rest of the year. 

4. I just feel like this is one of the literary elements that I really excel at teaching.

After the prezi and songs I always start by having the kids read "Death by Scrabble" the foreshadowing in that story really just smacks you in the face.

A husband and a wife are playing a Scrabble game. The husband really, really hates his wife. He notices that the words that are being played are coming true in real life (example: When he plays ZAP his wife gets a shock from the AC unit). He decides that he wants to be able to spell out a word that will kill his wife. In a fun little twist he ends up choking on a Scrabble tile and dying at the end of the story because his wife was plotting the same thing!

I get to throw a little bit of irony into the lesson as well because at one point the husband recounts how his cousin died when they were younger because he swallowed a bee. He wishes that his wife would swallow a bee and die, but he himself ends up choking on a letter "B" Scrabble tile. 

It is quite the demented little story, but I like it because it is highly exaggerated, and the kids really love it too. 

Sometimes I like to show an adaptation of the story after we read it:

My kids might actually have a little bit of personality this year because in almost every class a kid would say, "Hey Ms. Potter....wanna play Scrabble?" after reading this story. I got a chuckle out of that. 

Products discussed in this post:

Foreshadowing in songs

Foreshadowing Prezi

Complete Foreshadowing Unit

***Note: The video contains the word "Damn" if that is an issue don't show it. 

The story contains the words "Damn" and "Bitching" if you are opposed to that you can edit it out before reading it in class.