Instant Resources for The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte!

Whether you're looking for a short story to pair with the novel you're teaching, or you need a 2- to 3-day sub plan to use with the stories in your textbooks, Prestwick House Instant Short Story Packs go beyond basic comprehension to help students learn how to analyze literature. 

Each downloadable pack addresses key skills through 5-10 standards-based analysis questions by guiding students through a series of scaffolding graphic organizers and in-class activities. 

This Instant Short Story Pack for The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte includes:

• Scaffolding graphic organizers and in-class activities
• Standards-based objectives
• Introduction and pre-reading notes
• Complete short story text
• Rigorous analysis questions
• Detailed teacher's answer guide

About The Luck of Roaring Camp

“The Luck of Roaring Camp” was first published in August 1868, in the second issue of the new Overland Monthly. As it was being prepared for publication, the proofreader objected to the inclusion of a prostitute and to the language used by the characters. Harte was able to get the story published as he first wrote it, though.

The story was included in The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches, published in 1870.

Roaring Camp was an actual gold mining camp on the Mokelumne River in Amador County, California. Harte witnessed the Great Flood of 1862, which was probably the inspiration for the flood in the story. At its initial release, critics in California were not impressed with the story. Eastern readers and critics, however, were thrilled. The Springfield Republican in Massachusetts wrote that the story was “a genuine California story…so true to nature and so deep-reaching in its humor, that it will move the hearts of men everywhere.” Mark Twain praised it as “the best prose magazine article that has seen the light for many months on either side of the ocean.”

The story is humorous, and it is intended to be. The characters and their dialogue might seem clichéd or stereotypical, but remember that Bret Harte is one of the primary inventors of these clichés and stereotypes. Harte can also claim credit as a popularizer of a tale about a gang of coarse and uncouth ruffians who are reformed in language and behavior due to the presence of a baby