Teaching internal and external conflict? Captivate your students with 5 short stories to deepen their understanding!
With an already fascinating line-up of tips, texts, and tricks for teaching ELA concepts using short stories, I wanted to add 5 more that offer internal and external conflict examples.
Teaching Internal and External Conflict with Short Stories
All of these short stories are collected from CommonLit, which is free to sign-up for. The titles are hyperlinked to take you directly to the short stories, but some of them may require sign-in.
One-sentence summary from CommonLit:
✨ “This short story takes place in Colombia, where a civil war is taking place between ordinary citizens and the military that controls the country.”
Using to Teach Conflict:
✨ The barber faces an INTERNAL conflict while shaving a military captain
✨ Idea: pair with a clip from Sweeney Todd
Recommended for:
✨ MG and/or struggling HS readers
If you’re looking for a planning resource to make your short story unit more inclusive, check out this resource (and this post that details more about it).
One-sentence summary from CommonLit:
✨ “In this short story, set during the Vietnam War, a woman paints a wall that belongs to the kids of the neighborhood.”
Using to Teach Conflict:
✨ Explore the external conflict between a community and the painter who is an outsider
Recommended for:
✨ MG and/or struggling HS readers
Need other contemporary middle-grade short stories? Here you go, friends!
One-sentence summary from CommonLit:
✨ “A young Indian-American girl knows there is safety in numbers at school, but leaves the new girl to navigate dangerous waters alone.”
Using to Teach Conflict:
✨ Effective for teaching internal conflict in a relatable way to young readers
Recommended for:
✨ MG
If you’re looking for more short texts for teaching internal and external conflict, scope out this other blog post!
One-sentence summary from CommonLit:
✨ “In this story, an Arab-American teenager deals with painful feelings when she confronts racism in an unexpected place.”
Using to Teach Conflict:
✨ Teach about the internal conflict of deciding whether to speak up and do what’s right or stay silent (I would pair this with an article or short video on the bystander effect)
✨ Character vs. Society external conflict
Recommended for:
✨ Honors MG and/or HS
One-sentence summary from CommonLit:
✨ “This story describes a girl’s first day at Saturday school to learn ‘correct Spanish.'”
Using to Teach Conflict:
✨ Sharing her internal conflicts allows her to resolve it in an external way
Recommended for:
✨ MG
Final thoughts
Teaching internal and external conflict can be incredibly fun and creative! Of course, if you have less allowance in what you can teach, that can feel like a hindrance.
If you are teaching classic short stories, this short stories writing bundle resource does the planning for you. If you’re looking for diverse short stories to teach figurative language elements, check out our 2024 figurative language feast bundle!
However, if you CAN incorporate any of these diverse voices, let me know how you and your students liked it via the comments below!
Happy teaching, friends 💛
