All of Poe's work could be used within a class of middle schoolers to high schools, and achieve different standards and main objectives. Poe could be used to introduce students to strong figurative language, poetry and verse, theme, and unreliable narrators. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," the narrator becomes increasingly unreliable as the story goes on. This, paired with the dark themes and rich language, can lead students to have a lot of fun with the story. If it is taught well, students could even use this as a springboard to create their own short narrative with an unreliable narrator. Another example of an unreliable narrator can be seen in "The Tell Tale Heart." The speaker is extremely neurotic and has auditory hallucinations, and also has a strong conscious, we find out. I have personally seen this story taught as young as 4th grade, which I think goes to prove that Poe is pretty universal. However, I would have much better understood the content and language if I had studied it in a higher grade.
Within the poems "The Bells" and "The Raven" we see the obviously recurring theme of death. Both of these poems would be a great introduction to poetry. I personally prefer "The Raven" a bit more, and I think it could be paired with Poe's essay "The Philosophy of Composition." Whether the essay has been written as a satire or not has been argued, but the class could examine how his thoughts in "The Philosophy of Composition" ties into the final product of "The Raven." It would be part of a great poetry unit that could end with students writing their own Gothic poem. I would also add the poem "Annabel Lee" to that unit. I think it adds to the theme of death of loved ones.
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