Edgar Allan Poe

            When it comes to Edgar Allan Poe, I am fan. His stories are wonderfully, and terrifyingly fantastic. He is a truly entertaining writer, who makes murder and mayhem exciting. I appreciate his eloquent writing style. He is loquacious, almost to a fault. His short stories and poems are ideal for teaching sensory/imagery writing. While students may not always appreciate the wordiness of Poe’s writings, his ability to create a climactic event around a crack in a mansion, is impressive. It would be so easy to have students draw or paint a scene from one of Poe’s writings. He describes his settings in such detail, that you almost feel as if you are walking with the main characters through the gloomy scenes. “The Raven” has such a natural rhythm, whenever you read it aloud, that it makes it helpful in teaching students about meter and rhyme. Poe’s use of writing devices makes studying his work, especially for middle and high school students, ideal. The bonus of using Poe is his dark subject matter that he writes about. I do believe students appreciate being given something to read that is about a person going insane, or committing murder. It’s a nice change from the majority of the edited, or mild or “safe” content that students are given. I know my middle school students appreciate when I use Poe to teach narrative or poetic techniques.

            As mentioned previously, I am a fan of Poe. Every time I re-read one of his stories or poems, I end up noticing something I did not when I previously read his writing. “The Fall of The House of Usher” and “The Tell Tale Heart” both have such climactic endings, that I tend to focus and remember the most details from the end of those stories. I never paid much attenti0n to the build-up of the crack in the mansion, but it is a vital part of the story. I guess, as I become a proficient reader, and better at analyzing his work, I find I appreciate his creativity even more.