Exposure to the language and literary devices of the formalistic approach can be wonderfully displayed through the use of Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.” Playing the 13 minute audio tape together with a physical copy of the text will not only chill students’ spines but allow them to see first hand the elements of suspense, tension, imagery, repetition, atmosphere, first person narrative, and of course, descriptive language.
Providing students with guided analytical questions and organizers will engage them on many levels. Students should be expected to complete the following:
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1. Explain how the opening statement creates suspense.
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2. Highlight all the words that suggest fear and horror.
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3. Poe often repeats words -- “very, very slowly.”-- Highlight three examples and
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explain what effect it has on the story and the reader.
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4. List how Poe uses time to pace the story and your heart. When does he slow it
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down? Why? When does he speed it up? Why?
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5. The noises in the story create atmosphere. Fill in the graphic organizer below
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6. Poe uses imagery in phrases like, “I found the eye always closed, and so it was
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impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil
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Eye.” to get the reader to “see” his story as a film.
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Highlight three examples.
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How does he make the eye and death sound disgusting?
The introductory phase of the approaches should be completed in six days. It is at this point that I will present my students with grade-appropriate descriptions of each of the critical approaches that will be highlighted in
Animal Farm.
We will tease out similarities between the academic descriptions and the sample texts we considered.