Scary Podcasts for High School Students

For real. No cheesy music, no bad acting, and no trick endings where everyone is okay and it was all just a big misunderstanding. Seriously, your students are going to love these and they have just the right amount of horror while still being appropriate for school.

Myths and Legends

I can’t say enough about how great this podcast is. All of it. I haven’t listened to an episode yet that I didn’t love and find fascinating. Here’s my favorite for Halloween: Episode 47, Urban Legends: In the Dark. (Link takes you to the main page, then you must search for this episode by searching 47). Who doesn’t love urban legends? I use this for the fictional part of my spooky unit. Oddly enough, victims always seem to survive in urban legends. That’s how they spread; the person supposedly lived to tell someone about it. But even though the gore and murder is low, they still are really scary. Yes, I still check the back seat of my car when I get in. Darn urban legends.

Lesson Plan Ideas

I like having my students identify the different elements that must be present to achieve the purpose of an urban legend: to scare and to teach young people about the dangerous, scary world around them. Students fill out a graphic organizer noting the different details of five awesomely creepy urban legends. I then have them get into groups and post consistencies on chart paper around the room. Afterwards, I add a gallery walk to compare notes and to get them up and moving.

The podcast includes some extras at the end to connect the past to the present. One legend is about clowns so it touches on why people often fear clowns and the latest clown scares with the remake of It. There is a legend about someone living in your house and watching you without you knowing, and the host brings up a true event in Japan where this happened to someone. She lived with him for over a year before he finally noticed the missing food and found her hiding in a closet!

I usually complete this lesson in one 52 minute period depending on how chatty my class is.

Lore

Specifically, Lore Podcast, Episode 16: Covered Mirrors. The podcast, winner of multiple awards such as Best History Podcast 2016, is all about how reality can be scarier than fiction. This episode is about a few years in the early 1900s when someone took an axe to dozens of people and killed them in their sleep. An actual axe murderer serial killer whose identity remains unknown to this day.

Forget Jack the Ripper, this person has him beat in volume and in overall gore. If your students are anything like mine, they will be fascinated by this little-known tidbit of horrific history.

Lesson Plan Ideas

I like to focus on Mahnke’s (the host) style and delivery of the events. How does the layout of the show, word choice, and inclusion or exclusion of specific details support his overall purpose? For example, he uses the word “shroud” when describing how the murderer covered his victims afterwards. Why “shroud”? What effect does that have on the audience’s understanding of the events? They can also evaluate the evidence against the suspects: is it valid and relevant to the case? Mostly, it is not.

Students need to take notes on the all the suspects in order to determine if the evidence against them is valid and relevant.

The podcast itself is high interest and very well done. And, thanks to the Library of Congress I can also include actual newspaper articles and maps linked to the events. I have students marking and analyzing a train map to check for patterns and consistencies.

Students take notes on the different ax murders along railroad lines during the early 1900s in order to determine if there is a pattern and if there is any relation to the Villisca ax murders of 1912.

Students are making comparisons between the diction of current newspaper versus the diction from newspapers 100 years ago.

Students read the newspaper article about a 1914 ax murder in order to determine if it has any relevance to the 1912 Villisca, Iowa murders.

Netflix just came out with a movie based on the murder detailed in the podcast. The movie is terrible and not rated, but depending on your class you may consider showing the trailer. Just from the trailer you can see major inconsistencies from what actually happened to what is portrayed in the movie. It makes for great discussions on what “based on the true story” really means and if the students think the changes help or hurt the movie’s goal of scaring its audience members.

When I use all of the ideas listed above, this lesson takes a week of 52 minute classes. My students do a thorough analysis and need to listen to the podcast a few times to get all of the information they need. But really, they don’t mind. It’s that good of a story.

Build your own lessons, or you can check out mine in my TpT store (gotta pay those bills!)

Students love this non-fiction based lesson on the 1912 Villisca Ax Murders. They listen to the Lore podcast about the event in order to take notes. Students then analyze the information to see if evidence against the suspects if valid and relevant, if journalists are biased, character/murderer motivation, and much more!

2 comments

    • Andrea on October 27, 2023 at 9:32 am
    • Reply

    I work with an uncooperative PE teacher. I asked him to integrate the special need student’s in with the regular student’s and he said “No” yours are on that half. His special needs student’s did not move during a tag game. What do I do?

    1. I’ve worked in three different districts and I would have handled something like this differently in each district. Please take my advice with a grain of salt since I don’t know all the nuances of your district and work environment.
      I’m assuming you are a special educator advocating for special ed kiddos and that this is not a co-taught class. If this is correct, I would push this up the chain to whomever is overseeing special ed services at your school or district. Start low so you’re not going over anyone’s head, and don’t take it outside of the school without first meeting with and talking with admin in your building. If possible, go to admin with specific suggestions for how the PE teacher can truly include all students in the activities happening. That could mean changing up how students are grouped (but like you said never in a way that is separated only based on IEP vs. non IEP) how the game is explained, changing up rules that unintentionally exclude some students, etc. If you want some ideas, feel free to email me (aburrili126 at gmail) with a few more specifics and I can possibly give some better advice.
      Keep fighting for your kiddos; they’re lucky to have you 🙂
      Amanda

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