Question

a dark and stormy story night

1. it was the summer of 2013, a southern june when cicadas would normally be buzzing and kids would be outside until near, playing basketball and riding bikes around the cul - de - sac. but this year was different—it had been raining nonstop nearly every day, and june’s continued bad weather, tasha and jenny, were now stuck at her house as torrents of rain streamed down the back porch and lightning lit up the sky. it was, quite literally, a dark and stormy night.
2. things were even worse than usual tonight, though. an oak tree had fallen on power lines down the street, shutting off electricity to the entire neighborhood, and, although no one had been injured, tasha and jenny were stranded at jun’s for the night.
3. jenny was holding a flashlight to her chin, casting her face in eerie shadows. “what,” she asked her friends in her lowest, most spooky voice, “shall we do tonight?”
4. the three of them had been reading ghost stories aloud from grimms’ for the past hour and now sat on pillows in jun’s pitch - black room, which just happened to be in the attic. suffice it to say, the girls were a bit more jumpy than usual.
5. “let’s play with the ouija board,” suggested tasha. “i want to see what luke and jonathan are up to.”
6. luke and jonathan were the so - called “ghosts” they sometimes communed with through the ouija board, a flat game board printed with the letters of the alphabet. when two or more people put their hands on a planchette, a heart - shaped piece of plastic with a hole in it, the planchette was supposed to move around the board mysteriously to reveal letters, spelling out messages from the spirit world. ouija could be fun sometimes, but everyone knew tasha was moving it.

“we did that last week,” complained jun, hugging her knees ever harder to her chest as another flash of lightning cracked outside the window.
“ok,” said jenny. “i have an idea—since we’ve read all of jun’s books already, why don’t we have a contest to make up our own ghost stories?”
tasha said “yes!” and clapped enthusiastically with her flashlight, while jun, barely visible in the darkness, just nodded her head apprehensively.
tasha and jenny decided that they should all split up, and the two girls immediately ventured out into the darkness toward the third floor looking for inspiration for their stories. jun grumbled as she crept into the dark hallway—didn’t her friends know that the first rule of horror movies is to never split up? as she edged carefully toward the attic closet, the place where her parents kept their old records, books, and clothes, she heard an unusual sound
use the chart to categorize each feature as being preserved from a traditional ghost story or adapted from a traditional ghost story.

preserved	adapted
a mysterious noise goes unexplained.	the story includes a spooky attic setting.
friends gather to tell scary stories.	a storm causes power to go out in the neighborhood.

Explanation:

To categorize, we analyze each feature:

Preserved (Traditional Ghost Story Elements):

• Characters are frightened by a ghostly figure in white: Traditional ghost stories often have ghostly apparitions scaring characters.
• A mysterious noise goes unexplained: Unexplained noises are a classic trope in traditional ghost stories.
• Friends gather to tell scary stories: Telling ghost stories together is a traditional spooky activity.
• The story includes a spooky attic setting: Attics are common spooky settings in traditional ghost stories.

Adapted (Modern/Unique Twists):

• Characters use a flashlight for dramatic effect: Flashlights are a modern tool, not traditional in classic ghost stories.
• A storm causes power to go out in the neighborhood: While storms can be in traditional stories, the modern context of power outages and using flashlights ties to adaptation.

Answer:

Preserved:

• Characters are frightened by a ghostly figure in white.
• A mysterious noise goes unexplained.
• Friends gather to tell scary stories.
• The story includes a spooky attic setting.

Adapted:

• Characters use a flashlight for dramatic effect.
• A storm causes power to go out in the neighborhood.