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Ghost Story

Tuesday, 21 September 2010 19:05 Mrs. Hall
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Ghost story webquest: As we finish up our first American Literary theme unit, we can't forget what has become arguably one of the most popular "sub-genre's" of both literature and television....

THE GHOST STORY!

Step 1: Explore this site - http://listverse.com/2009/11/06/top-10-consistent-ghost-story-elements/

Step 2: Your mission- Find a truly scary ghost story, and read it. When you are done- leave a comment summarizing your ghost story, including details about the setting, conflicts, characters, foreshadowing and other significant literary elements. Check out these two sites to find your story.

Site 1: The Blue Girl

Site 2: Classic American Ghost stories

 

 

 

Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 September 2010 19:17  

Comments  

 
# The Girl who was Scared to Death — Carly Bone 2010-09-23 09:45
This story is about a teenage party. A boy makes up a dare for someone to go to the cemetery at night and drive a stick through one of the graves. A girl finally agrees to do it. She drives the stick through the grave and as she turns to leave she realizes “death” is grabbing onto her skirt, and she dies of fear. The next day her friends come and see her laying there dead and realize the thing holding her back was the stick driven through her skirt. This story is kind of an urban legend because I remember hearing it when I was little and went to slumber parties.
 
 
# the ghost of peddlers run summary — Jake Durec 2010-09-23 09:48
The ghost of peddlers run summary

This is about a peddler who had gotten his head cut off because his partner wanted the riches he had in his bag. The people who lived near and used the trail had often seen his headless ghost poking at the ground looking for his head. Eighty years later, a farmer was digging a ditch, and found the head. They buried the bones, and the ghost had been seen nevermore.
 
 
# The White Dress - laurenmoyer — Lauren Moyer 2010-09-23 09:49
In “The White Dress”, the main character is a young girl who is wants to go to a dance, but does not have a dress to wear. Later she goes to a funeral of an elderly neighbor, and while she is in the funeral home, she sees a girl in a casket wearing a brand new white dress. While the funeral director is distracted, she takes the dress from the dead girl and leaves the funeral home. The next night she went to the dance while wearing the dress, but as the night went on, her joints and muscles became very stiff. Eventually, she couldn’t move at all, so an ambulance was called. The doctors pronounced her dead, but she was just paralyzed and could still hear everything that was being said. The next day, she was placed in a coffin at the same funeral home and taken to be buried. While the gravediggers were making a hole for the casket, she heard them talking about the funeral home. Someone had heard knocking and it turned out to be the original girl with the dress was alive inside the casket. She said someone had given her a dress that had “voodoo magic” on it and when she wore it, she seemed like she was dead when she wasn’t.
 
 
# Not His Brother's Keeper — Marissa Johnson 2010-09-23 09:50
The Ghost Story I read was called Not His Brother’s Keeper. This story was about 3 siblings, 2 brothers and their younger sister. The girl was a big troublemaker in school. This got her in trouble one day with her teacher. The teacher made rude comments and the brothers found out. A few days later, the brothers found out were the teacher was staying, and planned to kill him. The teacher came out of his hotel room onto the balcony and the oldest brother shot and killed him. In the plan, after he shot the teacher, who had a gun, he would shoot the younger brother to wound him. This would be their way to say the only reason they shot is because the teacher shot first, so they killed him in self defense. The younger brother was taken to the hospital, and before he died from the gun shot, he ended up telling authorities that his brother really shot him. The older brother was really upset with the younger brother. He was acquitted and then fled to Texas. It was there were he couldn’t live with the guilt any longer and therefore looked at himself in a mirror and shot himself between his eyes.
 
 
# One More Room — Emily Gillette 2010-09-23 09:56
Jack was a Hollywood location scout. He has had this job for 15 years. Jack received a manuscript for a movie that was being shot at a ritzy hotel and a swap, a story from the 1940’s. Jack wondered the south searching for the right swap and hotel. Since he was traveling he was made reservations at the Barrow Hotel in Atlanta, he couldn’t find this hotel so he asked a taxi driver where it was and the guy thought he was nuts to want to go there. It was rebuilt to look modern, so the taxi driver suggested Jack for the Scofield Hotel, for it was still historical and old. This hotel had 15 floors and had much of the 1940 luxury hotel management. Jack reserved a room, top floor and agreed it would be perfect for the film. He realized something strange; everyone was in 1940’s eveningwear, world war uniforms, and champagne flowing everywhere. He thought maybe a film being already shot here. He then saw a Christmas tree in the corner, but it was mid-April, why would there be a tree? And now, a banner that read, “Happy New Years 1946!” across the fireplace. The crowd started to close in on him and two soldiers started to grab him. He started thinking the decorations were burning and the walls were spinning as the air became smoke. He then realized the place was on fire, but no one wanted to leave. The room fell from beneath him as he fell to a marble floor. A policeman was standing behind him and asked who he was. Jack told him that he just checked in a few hours ago and the man did not understand, he explained to Jack that this hotel hasn’t been running since five years ago, after the fire. He explained it was the worst fire in U.S history, 100 people died; the only ones to survive were on the bottom floors. Jack asked when the fire was and the policeman replied, “I believe it was New Years Eve, 1946.”
 
 
# The Blue Girl- dylan — Dylan Merritt 2010-09-23 09:57
I read the horror story The Blue Girl. The Blue girl is about this haunted area. This area is called Poole's Mill's Bridge. It was an old area of the Cherokee. The Cherokee got driven off and then is when i believe it became haunted. After the cherokee were driven off, many years later a family came to that spot for lunch. Once they got there the daughter went straight to go swimming in the river. She got in the water and almost instantly got swept way away down into the river. She went pretty far with her dad swimming after her until she got smashed and stuck then drowned under a big water wheel at the grist mill. After that the "Blue Girl" has hounted that place ever since.
 
 
# the blue girl — Adrian Onderko 2010-09-23 09:58
The Blue Girl blog
I think this story is about a little girl who lives near a creek suddenly drown from a fatal accident that happened on the creek one day. Then she returns every night to hunt for her missing locket that reminds her of her family. Then one night this guy hears a story about how he could find gold near the creek bank, so he goes to look for it. When he looks he finds the blue girls locket. The blue girl confronts him about the locket. He gives the locket back and she leaves and doesn’t return. The conflict of the story is the little girl wanting to find her locket that reminded her of her family. The characters of the story is; the blue girl, the old timer, the girls family, and Chuck. Chuck is the main character along with the blue girl.
 
 
# The blonde on the Skyway Bridge: Amber Litwiler — Amber Litwiler 2010-09-23 09:59
While I was reading “The blond on the Skyway Bridge,” I really got into the story. The woman who wrote it still wants to “talk” to the blonde. The story said that there is a girl on top of the bridge every time it rains and is dewy out. The author thinks that she committed suicide on top of the bridge, but never found out why. The author went to an elderly person’s house to discover the truth about the ghost story. The elder said that when she and her husband went for a drive over the bridge, they saw a “hitchhiker” (which is the blonde girl.) So they picked her up and she was sitting in the backseat of their car. She asked them if they were ready to die and asked them if they loved Jesus. A few minutes later, the elder woman looked back into the car and the blonde girl was gone! That is the last time they saw the blonde hitchhiker. My opinion on this story is that anyone who believes this is crazy. It was an interesting story, but I think it was a fantasy instead of a true story. The imagery in the story was very detailed. It explained all the rainy days and everything. But in conclusion, I think if you believe in ghosts, then you’ll enjoy reading this.
 
 
# Hell Hole — Mike Currier 2010-09-23 10:00
Basically in Georgia there is a town called New Hope, it was the site of a very bloody battle in the civil war. In the forest near a cemetery there is a haunted ravine. In the ravine when it storms on, May 26, the date of the original battle, you see the silhouettes of Union soldiers; get the faint but strong growing scent of rotting flesh, and hear the moaning and screaming of wounded soldiers. The author of this went to the ravine in search of civil war artifacts and stuff like that. He didn’t believe the place was haunted, considering every other place he would scavenge was supposedly haunted. The ravine got the nickname “Hell Hole.”
 
 
# Skull Lake — Lauren Smith 2010-09-23 10:00
This story is about a bunch of boys going down to an abandoned old company’s site, where there is a big crater, and in that crater, there is a pond. So all of the boys go swimming, but then one of the boys yell out that the other boy, Logan, was very hurt. The picked him up and tried to wake him up, but they couldn’t. They didn’t know what to do with the lifeless body. They boys didn’t want to tell anybody because if anyone knew they were back there, they would get in trouble because they would be trespassing. Plus, they had all been drinking, and Logan was too young to drink. They finally decided that they had to hide the body. So all of the boys made a pact not to tell anybody about the situation no matter what. So the boys tie a chain to Logans body and dived deep into the pond, and then tied him to a big rock at the bottom. After they finished doing that, they hurried back to the truck and left. Then a storm came, and the boys thought that it would wash away all the evidence of them being there. The police finally knew Logan was missing, went out to the quarry where they were swimming, and found Logans body. When the main boy was confronted by his dad about the incident ( his dad only asked if he knew Logan) he found out that Logan was still alive when they chained him to the bottom of the pond. That was when they were all young. And now the main guy has a family of his own. He still has dreams about Logan and in those dreams he still sees Logan, as a young boy, chained to the bottom of the lake, saying “I’m coming for you. I’m coming for you”. One night he awoke to a call from Jeff, one of the boys from that one day, asking if he had been in touch with any of the people who had been involved. It turns out that all of the other boys had gone missing. Jeff had been having the same dream as the main character. That was the last time he spoke to Jeff, several days later, Jeff went missing. The main guy knew that Logan was coming for him next, left to go back and confess everything to the police. So he is writing from prison, but he still has dreams about Logan. And as for the Lake, occasionally ghost hunters or thrill seekers go there, and report to have seen a skeleton in the water, hence the name “Skull Lake”.
 
 
# The Blue Girl — Monica Hazen 2010-09-23 10:04
For my American Ghost Stories section I decided to read “The Blue Girl.” It was about a haunted mill, they thought it was haunted by the old owner of the mill. When a young girl went swimming the current was very strong and her dad could not save her and she got stuck under the mill. She drowned under. Then she haunted the area and when the old mill had burned down they thought it was because of her. Then when a man went digging for gold there he saw her ghost and he then found that she was just looking for her gold locket with family photos in it, this way she can keep them close to her heart. The only characters in this story are a 9 year old girl, her mom, her dad, the museum and mill works a man looking for quick money and an old man. I thought that when the guy said he didn’t believe in the young girls ghost that he would just no worry and go look for the gold at night. Since he didn’t think that she was real I figured that he would see the ghost.
 
 
# the blue girl — Jon Weidner 2010-09-23 10:04
great story about a girl who falls into a stream and get killed by the mill. good ending of the girl finding what she wanted. also had a good moral. was it a coincidence that this mans name was chuck morris? and he is an actor?? sounds like another beasty actor.
 
 
# The Black Dog — Chuck Robinson 2010-09-23 10:11
This story takes place in the coal mining region of the southern United States. It is mainly focused within the state of Kentucky. The story starts out by telling about life of a coal miner in the 1920s. It then tells the story of a guy named Earl. Earl is the driving of a moving store. When travelling around one day, Earl almost runs into this dog laying in the middle of the road. The dog won’t move and he ends having to go around it. He then continues to see the dog periodically. He then runs into the owners of the dog and tells them about the dog. They say they don’t know what he’s talking about because the dog is trapped with his master in a coal mine. The story ends by telling about how the dog and his master both come out of the coal mine safely. I feel this is more of a horror story and not so much of a true ghost story.
 
 
# the beloved teacher — Dalton Beatty 2010-09-23 10:14
The story I read was the beloved teacher .In the story there was a small island called St. Simmons island where the story takes place. On the island there was couple plantation and the owners hired a teacher to teach their children during the day. But at night she secretly taught the slave children, the owners weren’t very happy with her doing that, but allowed her to do so. One day there was a riot on the island and a plantation owner was killed so that night the whites went through the island attacking the slaves and killed the teachers favorite slave student .Learning his death she felling into grief and she started to talk to a raven and read/teach the raven like she did to the slave boy. The white children caught her reading a poem to the raven and called her a witch and the parents dragged her out of the schoolhouse and killed her they wanted to burn her but a local took pity on her and buried her on a small piece of land and now nothing grows in the ground where her grave is.
 
 
# Cry Murder — Amanda Schell 2010-09-23 10:16
In my American ghosts stories I read “Cry Murder” it was a very good story I recommend taking the time to read it. It was about a man named John Perry Bailes whose left leg was cut off at the knee in a sawmill accident. A little while before this happened he would buy and sell cattle, but he would have to travel long distances on horseback, some people got to see him on his way back from is long buying trips. On his way home he saw the ghost of old man Lough jump out of the bushes. John tried to get his horse to gallop faster to lose the ghost but he keeps right up with him. When john got home he covered his face and leaned up against the wall and moaned. Later on he went to the Pine Grove Church and walked straight up to the mourners bench as the whole congregation stared in silence. After he walked out of the church he heard a man praying in the woods beside the church. John Perry did not return to the church and no one heard anything about him for weeks. Then he finally returned and was very sick. One night at 3 o’clock in the morning John Perry was officially pronounced dead. The two men that went in to pronounce him dead disappeared immediately after John’s funeral. The community found that john Perry wanted to confess in part of Ben Loughs murder.
 
 
# why people are scared of horror stories — Jake Durec 2010-10-11 09:51
I think that people like horror stories so much because of the following. For one thing, it gets the senses going, and makes you think. Number two, it gets your blood pumping and makes you possibly scared out of their wits. It is also a good thing to help people get over their fears. It also, gives people to a reason to watch more tv ha