Hello 7th Grade Families,
This quarter, we have been reading poetry and stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
In this unit, students learn to read like a movie director. First, they read poems by D. H. Lawrence, Federico García Lorca, and Emily Dickinson to learn to form mental images while reading. Then, they read three texts by Edgar Allan Poe—“The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Raven.” As they read, students are practicing reading skills such as citing details to support inferences from the text, identifying dramatic irony to locate scenes of suspense, and decoding figurative language and rhyme scheme.
Here are some conversation starters that you can use during this unit to promote discussion and encourage continued learning with your student:
1. In one of the poems you've read, find an example of imagery that helps you visualize something in your mind. Could you draw what you see? What details would you use?
2. What stood out to you about the characters and settings in Poe’s short stories and poems?
3. After looking at the way other people visualize Poe’s texts, including students and professional animators, how are their ideas different from or similar to your own? In what ways did comparing your own visualizations to theirs help you gain a better understanding of the text?
4. Which of Poe’s narrators seems the most trustworthy? The least trustworthy? What makes you say so?