SEARCH Studies Edgar Allan Poe
Sixth graders in the Huntington School District's SEARCH program recently participated in a double period workshop on the "eerie, edgy, Edgar Allan Poe." The youngsters have been studying about the famed poet and short story writer who some have called America's counterpart to William Shakespeare.
"Poe has been labeled the inventor of science fiction, the detective story and chilling tales of horror," said Maryann Daly, SEARCH program chairperson-teacher. During their weekly SEARCH classes leading up to the Poe workshop, the sixth graders read The Tell-Tale Heart (which touches on making predictions), The Masque of the Red Death (which involves the devastation of the plague that raged throughout Poe's lifetime and caused sorrow and death in his own family), The Oval Portrait (a tragic love story) and the poem, Annabelle Lee.
"We used a terrific interactive app, which includes graphics, sound effects and eerie music from the iPoe collection volume 1 app," Mrs. Daly said. "The students really got into the emotions involved in the descriptive way Poe wrote his tales and understood the symbolism involved in his message to his readers."
Educator Heather Thorgersen, creator of Think BIG Productions, led the SEARCH student groups through a character analysis of The Tell-Tale Heart. The youngsters were asked to choose four characters in the story and create a storyboard posing questions to each of them. The groups then designed original posters, giving life to the inanimate objects contained in the story itself, which helped to reinforce personification.
Some examples the students chose were the floorboards, the chair in the room, the vulture's eye, the beating heart, the terror, death and silence. Utilizing the Garage Band app, each group created background music and sound effects to create an atmosphere appropriate for a selected reading from the story; creepy and creative, but fun.
"Developing a curriculum devoted to Edgar Allan Poe and his works was an ambitious road to travel with children this young," Mrs. Daly said. "However, I have always felt that they were truly capable of thoughtful analysis and understanding the symbolism contained in Poe's famous works."
Studying the "back story" of Poe gave the SEARCH students an understanding of why the author wrote the way he did and how he viewed the people and the world around him. "They 'get' why Edgar is still so very famous and still read some 150 years after he died," Mrs. Daly said.
Following this unit, the SEARCH students will be participating in lab sessions related to forensic science investigations. "Edgar was a great way to springboard into this science that is so exciting to many people," Mrs. Daly said.