Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allen Poe’s work can be used in various ways throughout the classroom. I always have loved Poe’s work. It is weird, creepy, and iconic making it perfect for the classroom. Mainly, I have worked with his short stories but there is value within his poetry. Out of the four texts that we are working with today in class “The Tell Tale Heart” is by far my favorite. It is a text I would like to work with in my classroom as an educator. Poe is a master of imagery, and symbolism. There are also great themes in his works. I would love to spend time analyzing the imagery throughout his body of work and see how it compares and contrasts. I think “The Tell Tale Heart” would be good to use when introducing the idea of reliable and unreliable narration. The narrator in this text is unhinged and it shows in the text.

I also think that Poe is highly accessible. His writing is not hard to process. It generally is an easy read and because it is creepy it is engaging. I know that I am always intrigued by Poe’s horror/supernatural elements found within a lot of his work. A good project that could come from Poe is analyzing how Poe interprets death. Death is a common element explored in his work and it would be easy to compare how death is viewed throughout a variety of his work. I also think that Poe would be easy when having to incorporate pop culture elements into lessons. A lot of his work has been parodied by The Simpsons so it could be a fun lesson to teach parody using Poe. The "Tree-House of Horror" episodes of The Simpsons could be a good way to engage students because everyone has seen at least one episode!