In sixth grade, I had a gifted Language Arts teacher, Carlos Spataro, who introduced me to a life-long fascination with scary stories as well as the craft of story telling. At the time, he was also working on his Master’s Degree in Theatre and serving as the Creative Director for theatre productions at Purdue University at night so needless to say he was a very busy man. We rotated our classrooms for Science, Social Studies, and, my favorite class, Language Arts, that always

Remember school days when the power would go out? Your teachers would gather your class in a tight circle, faces lit dimly by the emergency lights, and pull out a scary story. Those were some of our favorite times at school. With Halloween around the corner, teachers don't even need to wait for the excuse of a thunderstorm to entertain and engage their students with spooky tales. When choosing a story to read to your students, make sure the story is one that reads well out