A Nightmare on ELA Street: Designing a Horror Lit Elective by Jason M. Kosmiski

 A Nightmare on ELA Street: Designing a Horror Lit Elective

by Jason M. Kosmiski, WPCTE Secretary

Last year, R.L. Stine spoke at the PennWest Clarion campus. The three male members of our English department decided to attend together. As we waited in line for the Marwick-Boyd Auditorium doors to open, the three of us talked about horror in popular culture, especially in books like Stine’s Goosebumps books. These conversations continued after the lecture. When I ran into my colleague, Logan McMahon, last summer, we hatched a plan to write a horror literature elective for our school.

Along the way, we constantly formulated our personal “greatest hits” of the horror genre (Stephen King MUST be represented in the collection somehow…and, you can’t leave out Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark). We wanted our students to be exposed to the same scary stories in books that we read growing up. We collected a long list of books in text messages back and forth throughout the summer. We decided to take a chronological approach to horror found in literature. Eventually, I loaded our completed list of horror greats into AI and prompted it to organize our list of books and stories into a syllabus that made some sense. Surprisingly, AI did an amazing job organizing our favorites into one unified class called “Horror Literature: Fear Through the Ages.”


The course begins with ancient Greek and Roman myths about Medusa and what would be considered “biblical horror” stories from scripture to Poe and Hawthorne, and ends with contemporary horror writers like Shirley Jackson and, yes, Stephen King. The AI even suggested sample assignments for each unit (some of which we will keep, and some which we will change, develop, or add to). Each student in the class will keep a fear journal during the year in which they will post their reactions about fear, media, and society.


In early August, I was called to sit in on interviews for the two open ELA positions at our school. I printed out our proposal for the horror literature class and presented it to my principal. Then, I forgot about it since my position changed from teaching Freshman English for 27 years to teaching Senior English, out of the blue. The only question she asked me was, “Why horror?”

This year, Final Destination: Bloodlines was released. Even though there was a 14-year gap between the last Final Destination movie and 2025’s Bloodlines, the movie grossed $317.9 million worldwide. Stephen King published the clown-boogeyman horror novel IT in 1986. The 2017 & 2019 movie adaptations grossed $1.177 billion worldwide. Horror is hot right now! It’s what the kids are interested in. In March 2026, Scream 7 has grossed approximately $194.2 million worldwide. Not bad for a franchise older than most of our students! The first Scream movie came out way back in 1996. This summer, two of the biggest-grossing movies of the year were A24’s Backrooms and Universal’s Obsession (which was totally a rip-off of W.W. Jacobs’ 1902 short story The Monkey’s Paw).


The horror genre has long served as a mirror to society’s deepest anxieties, exploring themes of morality, identity, otherness, trauma, and cultural fear – some heavy stuff! So, why not use horror literature as the gateway for students to become interested in books? I already co-created a student book club at my school to promote literacy and create a “safe place” for our readers. This seemed the next logical step for me to promote literacy at Cranberry High School.


In mid-February, I received an email from my principal with an excerpt from the course description I had presented to her in August. She was asking if that text was what I wanted listed in the Program of Studies book. Wait! Seriously? That’s when I was told that “Horror Lit” was being offered to our 9-12 grade students as a class! It was approved by our board. Last week, I enjoyed the surreal experience of ordering books for the class: Frankenstein, Night of the Living Dummy, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Body (Stand by Me), and many more. Books I never thought I’d be ordering for school.


While I was writing this blog entry, I took a break to visit my friend, Andy Godinich, in the guidance office. He is responsible for scheduling and building the master schedule. I am happy to report that currently enough students have signed up for Horror Lit for it to run on the schedule next year. It’s official: Horror Lit is “ALIVE!” The master schedule is set, the books are on their way, and I can’t wait to spend next year showing my students that while some stories are meant to be read, the best ones are meant to be survived. 💀💀💀

Update on the Course

Here's a short goul-etin (a post-mortem, really) from horror literature dead-quarters. We've been digging our way through Greek mythology, The Book of Revelation, Beowulf, and Dante's Inferno in search of history's scariest gorgons, ghouls, and Grendels. To begin the course, I cobbled together video clips of all the movies that scared me as a kid growing up in the 80s (Poltergeist, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Dark Night of the Scarecrow). Currently, my ten students are researching one monster from world mythology, ancient folklore, or urban legend that genuinely creeps them out. Then they are dissecting its lore, examining how and why it frightens them, and analyzing what societal fear this creature might represent. Next week we will be stitching together a Gothic horror reading list. Beginning with the certified monster-piece -- Frankenstein -- the most seminal text in Mary Shelley's body of work. I am also conjuring up a lesson that compares W.W. Jacob's The Monkey's Paw with the box office smash Obsession -- let's hope we'll be "having a nice date!!!"

Author Bio

Jason M. Kosmiski is a board secretary of WPCTE. He is a seasoned English teacher with 28 years of classroom experience. An expert in edtech and in using AI in the ELA classroom, Jason has presented on AI at various professional development sessions. A board member of PAECT NW and a Keystone Technology Innovator, he's passionate about leveraging AI in education. This summer, he became a Teach Plus Pennsylvania policy fellow, where he's working on advancing the science of reading in Pennsylvania.