The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe At His Best- Short stories for middle and high school students are everywhere! You can pretty much search for this phrase all over the internet and see tons of options for your students. Because of doing this search every year for 15 years of teaching, I have come across a ton of short stories I absolutely love to teach. They come from different eras and reading levels, but each one has something to teach students about life and about themselves!
More than any other short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe still captures the imaginations of his readers 150 years after his death. One of the things I love most about his writing is that he appeals to even the most reluctant readers. Students get to delve deeply into twisted plots and even more twisted characters. They become fascinated by his tales, like The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe authored, because they appeal to every one of us for various reasons.
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The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe’s Best Story
Have you ever been captivated by something? Or riveted to something or someone only to become obsessed? This short story tells of a man consumed by an obsession. He lives with an old man who has a “vulture” like eye. Because of this eye, the narrator schemes to murder this man. Yes, there is no other stated reason. Odd and creepy, right? By the end of the story, the narrator has become so overwhelmed by guilt and the fear of discovery that he confesses to the crime!
I don’t know about you, but this sense of horror is oddly appealing. We can’t look away when something bad is about to happen. In the same way, we read this story and can’t believe why the narrator kills the old man. We, however, most definitely connect to the sense of shame and conviction he enacts at the resolution. We can hear the pounding of the heart, just like when we have done something wrong and feel we are able to get caught.
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Want to teach poetry by Edgar Allan Poe? Click here to read Edgar Allan Poe Love Poems: Teaching of Poetry!
3 Reasons to Teach The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe
#1: The famous director Alfred Hitchcock once said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” Kids love action, drama, and tension. In a mystery or scary movie, we wait with bated breath for the moment the killer slowly enters the room with the victim! We become involved and attached to the characters. In this short story, we get to experience dramatic pacing and diction that lead up to the climactic resolution. Because of Poe’s structure and writing style, teaching the reading standard connected to tension is vital here!
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.5
Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
#2: It provides fantastic vocabulary, but the level of reading is not so high that average students are not able to understand. You really have to know your students. As a ninth-grade English teacher, I get students who have a vast range of reading abilities. A short story like this one may require a read-aloud if you primarily teach struggling readers.
And reading it aloud or listening to an audio version is SO MUCH FUN! Your students will get more out of it if you read with them. As a caveat, I would probably preview the text or read aloud with mini-definitions. By integrating the meaning of the word, it helps struggling readers as they “read” along to comprehend what they are reading.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
3. We can teach perspective. As the story is told from a first-person perspective, we get to live in the mind of a murderer. This point of view allows us to hear his thoughts and participate in his actions without actually getting our hands dirty. Without this perspective, we cannot fully appreciate the circumstances.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.3
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
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5 Activity Ideas for The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe:
1. 1-Sentence Summaries
You can break up the story into chunks to make reading this higher-level text a bit easier! After reading each chunk, encourage students to underline 2-3 important details. Then, model how to create a 1-sentence summary for each chunk. It makes reading this short story a piece of cake!
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2. Character Analysis
Students can compare and contrast the 2 main characters: the old man and the narrator. Start out by teaching about character traits, both internal and external. (CHECK OUT THIS CHARACTER TRAITS FREEBIE you can use with The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe!!) Then, have students locate descriptions of either or both of the characters. They can analyze what the text says about each character and how the evidence contributes to specific traits.
3. Visualization
For most students, visualization is key to comprehension! Plus, your more creative students will have a blast depicting the images within this story! You could even have them create a Movie Poster or a Comic Strip for The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe created!
4. Imagery Analysis
Analyzing imagery is essential for understanding short stories like The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe wrote. He is the master of language. Encouraging students to read every word and bathe in the imagery will not only help with comprehension, but it will hopefully also develop some Poe admirers 🙂
5. Literary Analysis
The Literary Analysis Bundle BELOW for The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe encourages students to begin their journey into writing literary analysis. It takes students step by step through the literary analysis process by teaching them to examine how characterization leads to theme. Poe is not merely a horror writer. His writings display humanity’s weaknesses, sins, and the deepest parts of ourselves we are unwilling to show others. His tales are rife with thematic connections, or the story’s message(s). By digging deeply, students can break down the theme of “The Tell Tale Heart!”
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