BJ Novak Short Stories Reading Bundle

A ready-to-teach mini-unit for high school English

Looking for a high-engagement short story unit that works with every level of reader? This bundle brings together four complete lesson packs based on B.J. Novak’s witty, thought-provoking short fiction. Each story is short enough for overwhelmed readers yet layered enough to spark deep analysis and conversation.

What’s Inside

This bundle includes:

• The Rematch Lesson Pack
• The Girl Who Gave Great Advice Lesson Pack
• Four Short Stories Lesson Pack
• I Never Want to Walk on the Moon Lesson Pack

Each pack comes with ready-to-use lessons, guiding questions, and analysis activities designed to help students practice critical reading skills and engage with complex themes in approachable ways.

Why This Works

• 1–2 Week Unit: Easily adapts to short-term planning or flexible sub plans.
• High Engagement: Novak’s humor, satire, and unexpected twists grab student attention right away.
• Easy Differentiation: Short texts mean you can support emerging readers while challenging advanced students to dig into tone, symbolism, and theme.
• Rich Analysis: The stories open doors to conversations about human behavior, ambition, satire, and life’s big questions.

Bonus Materials

While the focus of this bundle is reading and analysis, you’ll also get:

• Intro to Analytical Paragraph Writing materials (included with The Rematch v2)
• Formative + Summative Assessment prompts (from I Never Want to Walk on the Moon)

Perfect if you want to extend the unit into a writing-focused assessment, or just keep them on hand for later in the semester.

✨ Teachers love this bundle for classes with a wide ability range—you can keep reluctant readers engaged, while giving advanced students meaningful opportunities to wrestle with big ideas.