Rather than who done it, the mystery literary detectives have to solve as they examine the evidence found in Edgar Allan Poe's famous "The Tell-Tale Heart" is why did he do it?

Additional Tags

english language arts

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Classroom Considerations

• The success of the final activity in the plan is based on the assumption that no class member is familiar with Poe's famous short story
• The other three activities suggested in the packet, particularly the third activity that focuses on Poe's use of the "oh" sound, encourage a close reading of tale and reveal how carefully Poe structured his short story

Pros

• The activities encourage the use of context clues to determine meaning of new words, the use of online audio dictionary pronunciation guides, and close reading
• Asking readers to become literary detectives searching for clues to predict the ending encourages close reading

Cons

• The story appears in many anthologies; therefore, many of the class members may already be familiar with the tale

Common Core

RL.9-10.1 RL.9-10.3