The document discusses a literature class focusing on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart". It outlines activities for students to complete including reading comprehension questions and a discussion of literary elements like characters, themes and symbolism in the story. Students are assigned homework to re-read the story and write a paragraph using vocabulary words from the text.

1. Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Literature: “The Tell-Tale Heart”

2. Housekeeping
• Green box
– handouts
– homework
• Short Story Exam
– Wednesday, November 16th
– Study Sheet available by next week

3. The Tell-Tale Heart
After Reading
Briefly: Think about the title again. How does it
relate to the story?
• Whose heart does it refer to?
• How does it reveal, give a signal, give a clue?

4. The Tell-Tale Heart - Activity
30 minutes - NO DICTIONARIES ALLOWED!
1. Refer to the story to complete the following questions
on the handout:
1. Understanding the Words in the Story (Multiple
Choice) /5 (p. 144)
2. Check-up (Multiple Choice) /5 (p.142)
We will go over the answers together. Each question is
worth half a mark (.5). The marks will not count – they
are For Your Information (FYI) only.

5. The Tell-Tale Heart
Understanding the Words in the Story (Multiple Choice)
1. acute (adj.)
b. sharp
2. conceived (v.)
a. imagined
3. thrust (v.)
b. poked (peeked, pushed)
4. vexed (v.)
b. irritated (annoyed)
5. profound (adj.)
b. highly intelligent

6. The Tell-Tale Heart
6. stifled (v.)
a. smothered
7. awe (n.)
c. wonder and fear
8. well up (v. – phrasal verb)
a. come OR c. rise
9. distracted (v.)
c. frightened
10. causeless (adj.)
b. unfounded (without foundation, reason or cause)

7. The Tell-Tale Heart
Check-up (Multiple Choice)
1. c. hearing
2. b. nervous
3. c. to get rid of an obsession
4. a. cleverness
5. b. fury
6. c. the beating of a human heart
7. a. the old man’s room
8. a. loud shriek
9. c. completely confident
10. c. hypocrisy

8. Homework
Write a paragraph using the following words from the story “The Tell-Tale
Heart”: distracted (v.) , awe (n.), stifled (v. ), acute (adj.), thrust (v.)
– Your paragraph must
– use the correct form (n., v., adj., adv.), and
– show the meaning of the word fully
For examples, review how the word is used in the story, look at samples
sentences in a dictionary (but do not use them in your paragraph!), or look at
the sample sentences on the next two slides.

9. Sample Sentences
1. distracted (v.) (past tense of distract)
(usually takes an object)
Ex: I tried to study but I was distracted by the students at
the next table who were talking loudly.
Please don’t distract me from what I am doing.
I am very distracted right now.
2. awe (n.)
Ex: We were so in awe of the amazing sunset that we had to
stay and watch until the sun was completely gone.
They were filled with awe . . .
I was full of awe . . .

10. Sample Sentences
3. stifled (v. ) (past tense of stifle) (usually takes a direct object)
Ex: I was very tired, but I didn’t want to appear rude so I stifled a yawn.
The dictatorship used violence to stifle dissent.
Stifle your anger and focus on what you have to do.
4. acute (adj.)
Ex: Her eyesight is acute; she can read highway signs when they are still
far in the distance.
He had an acute understanding of middle east issues.
5. thrust (v.) (usually takes an object)
Ex: He thrust his foot into the aisle, tripping his classmate.
She thrust her unwanted opinions on her friends.
They were thrust into a new life without any preparation.

11. BREAK

12. “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Literary Elements Activity
You will need:
• “The Tell Tale Heart” Story and Questions
• Handout: “Reviewing Story Elements”
• Handout: “Fiction Terms”

13. “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Literary Elements Activity
Group Time: 30 minutes
• You should use this time to
– Help each other understand the story
– Discuss some of the literary elements you are still
unsure about

14. Questions You Still Have
• What is the relationship between the narrator and the
old man? What is the location?
A: We don’t have enough information to answer these
questions . They may be roomates. They may live in a
“boarding house” (Almost like a hotel for single men)
• How did he cut up the old man’s body without leaving
a trace of blood?
A: He cut it up in the “tub” (bathtub)
• What type of story?
A: Horror, Suspense.

15. Groups
A: Chanel, Hossein
B: Grace, Maha
C: Ysaura, Omid
D: Shun, Raana, Dominic
E: Aiko, Estella, Manochehr

16. Class Review of Literary Elements
Point of View (POV )
• First person point of view
• The main character is telling us the story
• Easy to know the narrator’s thoughts and feelings
• He describes himself as clever and smart, etc. – we get to
know his personality through his own description – but it
could be biased
• We don’t know what he looks like or any background
information about him
• We only know what the narrator wants us to know and we
don’t really know if it is accurate
• He’s an unreliable narrator – he is insane

17. Class Review of Literary Elements
Setting
• Midnight, in a house, in the old man’s room
(chamber)
• Probably North America in the late 19th or early
20th century (lantern)
• It has to take place late at night, in a place where
two men live in the same building -where the
narrator has access to the old man’s room and
the two characters see each other every day –
the old man has to live alone and be vulnerable

18. Class Review (Cont’d.)
Character - is the narrator round or flat?
Round
• personality is complicated – by his description
• sometimes he is feeling crazy, sometimes confident, patient, strong, he loved the
old man but he wants to kill him, he doesn’t like the man’s eye – it is difficult to
understand his motivations
• he is not straightforward – he wants to kill the man but treated him more kindly
leading up to the crime.
• in life, everyone is flat and round; if you see someone you don’t know walking
down the street, they are flat to you; if you stopped to talk to them and get to
know them, they become round to you. In a short story, it is up to the writer how
much we learn about a character; if the writer shows/tells us a lot about a
character, we can say the character is round (Shun’s comment)
Flat
- he is defined by his obsession

19. Class Review (Cont’d.)
Character - is the narrator dynamic or static?
Dynamic
– At the end of the story he admitted his crime because his
heart was beating louder and louder . Did he confess jus to
stop the beating? Or because he felt guilty about his crime?
Only in the second case could we say he is dynamic.
Static
– When he begins telling the story, it has already happened.
He is proud of what he had done, even after he has
confessed; he has no regret – so he has not undergone a
change in view, belief, or outlook.

20. Class Review (Cont’d.)
Conflict
Internal
Character vs. his feelings stand his guilt
Character vs. his feelings for the old man
External
Character vs. Character – narrator vs. old man’s eye
Character vs. Character – narrator vs. police
Foreshadowing
• The disease had sharpened my senses not dulled (p. 135) – suggests he is crazy
• I loved the old man, he had never wronged me . . . . (p. 135) – suggests conflict between them
• The first paragraph – his description of his hearing (heard all things in heaven and hell) tells us he is
probably crazy and may do something unreasonable (p. 135)
• It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain. (p. 135)
• My blood ran cold . . . I made up my mind to take the life of the old man . . . (p. 136) (more direct
statement than foreshadowing)

21. Class Review (Cont’d.)
Outcome
• Negative – he was caught
• Positive – he felt that he got rid of the sound of the beating
heart
Theme
• If someone commits a crime, it will eventually be revealed
• A person with a mental illness is not capable of
understanding they are committing a crime or feeling guilty
• One can lie to other people but cannot lie to themselves
(Other themes are possible, but they must be based on the
details and overall meaning of the story)

22. Homework
For Wednesday, Nov. 9th - “The Tell-Tale Heart”
1. Re-read the story as many times as you need to in
order to fully understand it. Be prepared for in-class
questions on this story.
2. Write a paragraph using the following words from
the story “The Tell-Tale Heart”: distracted (v.) , awe
(n.), stifled (v. ), acute (adj.), thrust (v.). Your
paragraph must use the correct form
(n., v., adj., adv.), and show the meaning of the word
fully.