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"The Black Cat", "The Raven", "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Haunted Palace" may sound like Halloween party themes, and maybe, at times, they are. But they are more commonly associated with Edgar Allan Poe, the prolific poet and Romantic era author who made the short story famous. If Poe were alive today, he could have easily been nominated for a horror movie award. His work brings fear-infested emotions to the forefront and creates creepy images in the mind of the reader. With his literary themes revolving around death, insanity, and mystery, Poe's writings give readers the opportunity to explore the twisted mind through metaphor, description, character, and other literary devices.
One of the best instructional periods I observed involved students reading along to an Edgar Allan Poe audio recording that was laced with sound effects, macabre music, and a spooky-sounding narrator. The teacher stopped and checked for understanding at several points in the story, and as students read along in their books the teacher asked "prediction" questions that were written on a large overhead at the front of the room. By forming questions around "context clues" within the text, the teacher was able to fully engage students. Most kids love a good, scary horror story. The suspense that's created in a Poe story or poem is ideal for holding student interest in a classroom. The delivery of this material is what makes it fun to teach.
The group of lessons below give suggestions for infusing Poe into lesson plans. The subject of Edgar Allan Poe encapsulates so many academic areas and topics that students will indirectly learn about history (the Romantic Period), psychology, literature, and language arts by studying this one author, and all he had to offer.
Edgar Allan Poe Lesson Plans:
Students explore the genius of Edgar Allan Poe by choosing one of his stories, and then pairing up with a partner to identify the plot, setting, character, and perspective of the chosen work. In pairs, the students will also look at the emotions that the story conjures up, and will write about personal experiences that may have invoked the same kind of emotions. The lesson is completed by having students create a poster, poem, song, or other form of creative work that summarizes their reading and exploration of this material. Because I'm such a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe's work, I adore this lesson. Poe's ability to capture the reader with haunting images, eerie descriptions and dark tone make his stories timeless. I would choose one story for the entire class to work on (instead of having them choose from three different ones), and see how each pairing of students comes up with a different kind of interpretation for that particular story. I think it would also be beneficial for the class to experience a Poe story as a pre-recorded narration, rich with sound effects so that students experience the chilling, unsettling tone of Poe's literary voice in a contemporary medium that they can identify with.
Eighteenth and NineteenthCenturyTombstones
Students combine social studies, history, and language arts skills during this lesson. As they read "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, they discover metaphors, language, and phrases from the time period along with heroic couplet and rhyme scheme. They delve into the personal life of Poe and the time period of the eighteenth century by using worksheets and vocabulary sheets as guides while they embark upon Internet research. Finally, students re-create the kind of gravestone and embroidered family register used during the eighteenth century. The combination of learning about eighteenth century lifestyle with the writings and language style of this time is an excellent way to reinforce multiple content areas in one class. To improve descriptive writing abilities, I would also have students write a paragraph or two which describes the eighteenth century style gravestone and family register.
In this lesson students analyze Poe through his short story and a journalist's interpretation of who he was. As students read the Poe story, they develop their own personal opinion about the story. They also read a piece about the life and times of Edgar Allan Poe, and then discuss different opinions about Poe and his work. Students bring the lesson to a close by investigating an author of their choice, answering questions pertaining to that author through Internet research, and finding an excerpt of that author's work. This lesson requires students to research different perceptions, which expands their viewpoint. Additionally, I would have the students write a compare/contrast essay on the work of Poe and the author of their choice.
As students research the various works of Edgar Allan Poe, they also take a look at various documents written by his biographers, and through a series of questions and inquiries, are asked to determine the legitimacy of certain claims about Poe's personal life. By utilizing Internet research, activity sheets and documents related to Poe, students will arrive at their own conclusions. The exercises inherent in this lesson allow students to discover not just one, but many different vantage points that attempt to analyze Edgar Allan Poe. To make this lesson more understandable to many different levels of students, I would have students draw a T-chart, and pick out words or phrases from various sources that contradict one another. By picking out these words and phrases, students will be given the opportunity to develop new vocabulary.
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