St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves | Short Story Guide for Students ELA

Engage high school English Language Arts students with Karen Russell's contemporary short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves."

Russell's short story is a fantastic, coming-of-age boarding school read with a twist. With wolves. The story treats home, friendship, conformity, and culture shock themes. In the story, Claudette and her sisters cope with living at an all-girls boarding and finishing school run by Catholic nuns. But when tension arises between the wolf girls, Claudette has to make a decision that will forever transform her life and change what she thinks she knows about community and the pack.

• Note — this resource comes equipped with both a printable and digital version (that works with PDF & Google Workspace).

Use this Digital Download for a Three-day English Language Arts Lesson.

Using my tested-in-the-classroom resources, teenagers will want to discuss this charismatic story's thematic and emotive events. So, I have loaded this resource with freewriting activities, questions, and discussions that will get your students talking and writing! N.B. — I supply links to the story online, but this educational digital download does not contain copyrighted material. The story is also heavily anthologized (e.g., it is in the popular Norton Anthology of Literature for High School Students (14th Edition).

Common Core Standards:

This resource aligns well with the Reading Literature standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2. Remember that this lesson was made for Ninth and Tenth graders; however, it fits the criteria for adolescent learners in 7-12.

This Resource Includes the Following Features:

• Teacher's Notes for Using this Resource in the Classroom
• 3-Day Lesson & Pacing Calendar
• Author Biography Reading Card + Internet Research Activity
• 13-Count Reading Comprehension Questions
• 2 Google Forms Assessments
• Triple Venn Diagram for Organization of Ideas
• Case Study: The Feral Child
• Note-Taking Template for Students
• Further Reading List
• Teacher's Guide and Answer Key
• Includes a standards alignment chart for planning

I created this resource with high school students in mind. It is designed for a typical High School English curriculum short story unit. You can use this resource as a stand-alone lesson or pair it with a larger unit on American Literature. It works well in a Humanities course, an English Language Arts Class, or a Creative Writing class.

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