"The Tell-Tale Art" of Reading Comprehension!

Students have been working hard in English as they have been applying a variety of reading comprehension strategies to the texts that they have been reading. Today, I introduced the students to Edgar Allan Poe. I selected Poe to not only challenge students with their reading comprehension, but to also capture their interests. I am bored with the selections of reading that their English textbooks offer, I cannot even imagine how students are feeling at this point. So today student's explored Poe's short story, The Tell-Tale Heart.

Before getting down to the reading, I had students do a short literacy activity called story impressions. I selected key vocabulary terms from the story and placed the terms on the board in the order that they appeared throughout the story. I read the terms aloud to the class and explained any words that they did not understand like startled, cautiously, and planks.

The list of vocabulary...

Next, students wrote a short prediction about what they thought the story was going to be about after I described the type of stories that Poe typically writes. After a few students shared their predictions with the class, I read the story, The Tell-Tale Heart aloud to the class stopping occasionally to check for understanding by asking students to answer questions or to summarize. I asked students to pay attention to the way that the vocabulary terms on the board appeared in context.

Lorynna sharing her prediction with the class. 

Lucy reading her story impression/prediction aloud.

Reading The Tell-Tale Heart aloud.

One of my students felt the need to point out that I make funny faces 

when I read aloud! Thanks.

After reading, we discussed if the narrator provided evidence in defense of him being mad or did his evidence make him seem mad. For homework, I asked students to write how their story predictions were the same and different from the actual story. I explained to students that thinking about the reading and comparing and contrasting similarities and differences was one way to understand what they comprehended from the story. Overall, students seemed quite captivated by the writing of Poe. After class, three students chased me down just to ask if they could borrow the book that contained the collections of Poe's work. I was happy to lend it to them! This is the type of excitement over reading that I wanted to see!

My Form 2 girls are such a fun group of students! 

They are always so excited to try anything new!