Intended for middle school teachers interested in helping students (especially those with no experience attending theater) learn how to read and see a play by themselves, this paper provides a lesson plan based on W. W. Jacobs's dramatic play, "The Monkey's Paw." After furnishing a rationale for reading this particular play, the paper discusses the general instructional objectives that students should attain after having read, discussed, and interpreted a well-made and worthwhile play. The paper considers various strategies for teaching the play, including how much time to spend on background, reading the play as a script, and basic terms for dealing with the structure (plot). The paper then addresses the scene-by-scene interpretation of the "Monkey's Paw," providing discussion questions on each scene, as well as on producing the play and on the setting, lighting, properties, makeup, and costuming. The paper concludes with a list of eight different ways to evaluate the students' success in learning about the play, and with a brief coda that reiterates the purpose of the lesson plan and its usefulness for future studies of dramatic texts. (NKA)