Spooky season is upon us and what better way to spend it then with the works of American Master of the Macabre, Edgar Allan Poe! Poe has always been one of my favorite authors and his work, while challenging, is always a favorite of students. A master of short fiction, he also wrote some of the most beautiful poetry to exist in the American canon. We began this week with a study of his biographical information.  This is important to put his work in context for students who may not be familiar with him. His unlucky and difficult life is one of the main inspirations for his work. Understanding his personal tragedies can help students to more fully engage with his literature.

We then moved on to his famous short story “The Tell Tale Heart.” The students were fascinated by this creepy story and enjoyed it very much.  They completed the week by answering in depth questions that helped them interpret this famous short story. Next week and after, we will continue our journey in middle school with my personal favorite “The Masque of the Red Death” in which we will examine symbolism and Poe’s most famous work “The Raven” which will give us our first opportunity to discuss poetry this year.

High School took their final assessment over their literary criticism unit this week. While this unit has proven challenging in many ways, I’m also seeing my students make connections to texts that they may not otherwise had made; thus proving the value of this unit to their current curriculum and beyond.  Next week, High School students will join my other classes in reading Poe, but they will dive into some of the longer and more advanced works such as “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “Murders at the Rue Morgue” which was the birth of the Detective Story genre. So if you enjoy detective stories or crime procedurals where a lawman examines clues and catches a criminal, you have Poe to thank!