Hello, and welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Ms. Holiday, and I'll be teaching you today.

I'm really excited to get started with today's lesson, because we're going to start reading Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, which is an absolutely fantastic and equally quite disturbing short story about an insane, delusional narrator.

So, I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas about this text.

Let's begin reading.

So, today's lesson is called Reading the Tell-Tale Heart.

And, by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain the overarching plot of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, which is an absolutely fantastic story.

So, let's get on and read it.

Here are some keywords that you'll need to unlock today's learning.

Starting with the word paranoia.

Now, paranoia is suspicion and mistrust of other people or their actions that is irrational.

Now, secondly, methodical means taking a really systematic and organised approach to something.

Dissimulation means pretence.

So, hiding a person's true thoughts or feelings.

Now, being sane means being of sound and sensible mind.

And, finally, a word that means the opposite of sane is delusional.

And delusional means when you hold irrational or untrue beliefs, but that is often because of a mental illness that you might be suffering with.

And, in this story, we will see a delusional narrator who argues that he's sane throughout.

So, you will need these keywords to be able to articulate your thoughts on the text, The Tell-Tale Heart.

So, if you need to take a moment to pause the video while you jot some of those definitions down, then please do feel free to do so.

If not, then let's carry on.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

The first learning cycle, very exciting.

We're going to be reading the text in full.

We're then going to spend the second half of the lesson discussing some of the themes of The Tell-Tale Heart, and forming some opinions about the main character particularly.

But let's start first of all by reading the text.

So, as I said at the beginning of the lesson, we are going to be reading The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

So, first of all, I'm gonna kick off this lesson with a little discussion.

What is a tell-tale? If we use that phrase, "You're a tell-tale," what does it actually mean? So, I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you discuss that with the people around you, or consider it independently if you're working on your own.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions.

I'm really great to see so many of you recognising this phrase, tell-tale.

Because a tell-tale is a person who secretly tells somebody in authority, so somebody in a position of responsibility, that somebody else has done something really bad.

Now, some of you, and it depends where in the country you are, might call a tell-tale a snitch, or you might call them a grass.

I personally would use the word grass to mean tell-tale, but that's because I'm from up north.

So, it depends really where you're from and what your dialect is.

So, well done if you've got those ideas, fantastic work.

So, having had that part of the title clarified, Jacob asked this question, he said, "Ah, I see." "Well, I wonder what the text is about then." And I'd like you to pause the video and discuss what you think this text might be about.

So, I'm looking for some predictions here as to what might happen in the text.

So, pause the video and share your thoughts and ideas with somebody else.

I can't wait to hear what you've come up with.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions.

I'm not going to reveal just yet what the text is all about, but it was very interesting to hear a real range of ideas.

And some of you really kind of using this idea of a tell-tale to inform your predictions, which is fantastic.

So, well done.

What I'm going to do, however, is ask you to have another discussion.

Now, we know that this is a gothic text.

So, what sort of themes or conventions might we expect to see in this text? So, here, what I'm sneakily asking you to do is tell me how many gothic conventions you can remember, and which you might expect to see in a text called The Tell-Tale Heart.

So, I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you consider that question with the people around you.

Off you go.

Again, some really fantastic discussions there.

And a massive well done.

I was so impressed by how many gothic conventions many of you were able to remember.

Things like the battle between good and evil.

Some kind of isolated or egotistical protagonist.

Dark settings.

I was so impressed by how many of those conventions you were able to call to mind.

So, really well done.

So, here's a little bit of context about the text.

The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe, and it was written in 1843.

So, in the 19th century, which is roundabout the time when many of our other gothic texts were written as well.

So, it's very much of its time.

Edgar Allan Poe was a very successful and very popular American author of gothic stories and poems, particularly.

Now, you might be wondering, well, what is a short story? And a short story is sometimes defined as a story that can be read in one sitting.

Approximately between 20 and 60 minutes it should take you to read a short story.

So, that is what we would define as a short story.

Now, short stories are absolutely brilliant to read and analyse, because, because they are shorter than, you know, a novel or a longer text, every single word that the writer chooses has to work extra hard to create the writer's intended effect.

So, basically, the writer has to think even more carefully about their word choices.

And that makes for fantastic and really interesting analysis.

And I'm really excited to hear what you think about this short story, because it is just brilliant in my opinion.

So, onto the exciting part now, where we're going to start reading this fantastic short story.

You'll notice that I've put some of the text on the slide for you.

I'm going to read it and I'd like you to follow along.

Make sure you're following really closely, as I'm going to be asking you some questions about what we have read in just a moment.

So, let's get started.

"True." "Nervous." "Very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am." "But why will you say that I'm mad?" "The disease had sharpened my senses." "Not destroyed, not dulled them." "Above all was a sense of hearing acute." "I heard all things in heaven and in the earth." "I heard many things in hell." "How, then, am I mad?" "Hearken and observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the whole story." So, really engaging and interesting opening there.

And what I'd like you to consider is, well, what does the narrator say that his disease is? What effect does it seem to have on him? And what is your impression of the narrator based on what you've just read? So, what I'm gonna do now is invite you to pause the video while you consider those three questions, either independently, if you're working on your own, or with the people around you, if other people are available to you for discussion.

So, pause the video and off you go.

I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Brilliant discussions, and some really great comprehension demonstrated there.

So, really well done.

I was absolutely thrilled to hear that many of you were able to identify that the narrator states that he's not mad, but very nervous.

And that the disease that he mentions is his nervousness.

But he says that the effect that this has had on him is that it's sharpened his senses.

So, he doesn't view it as kind of something that is a disadvantage to him.

He, actually, almost views it as something that is advantageous to him.

And what's really interesting about this text is that, though the narrator insists that he's not mad, so he says that really strongly, he says, "I'm absolutely not mad," we struggle to believe him because he is actually protesting a little bit too much.

He also states that he's heard many things in hell, which may suggest that he's not as sane as he claims. Okay, because that's not something we would expect someone to say on our first introduction to them.

So, we can kind of already get the impression that, perhaps, the narrator is not a hundred percent reliable, and that we can't fully trust everything that he says.

So, well done if you got those ideas, fantastic reading and let's proceed.

So, let's check for understanding before we continue reading the text.

Which of the following best summarises our impression of the narrator? Is it A, that he's a strange person whom we suspect might be mad, despite his protest that he's perfectly sane? Is it B, that he's a strange and antisocial person, but one who seems rational and reasonable? Or is it C, he's a warm and calm person who seems to be very friendly and welcoming? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you make your answer selection.

Off you go.

Fantastic, and it was great to see many of you selecting A, because you're absolutely right.

Here, we definitely get the impression that the narrator is very strange, and we suspect that he might be mad, even though he keeps saying that he isn't.

So, well done if you got A, you are spot on there.

Brilliant work.

So, let's carry on reading the text.

"It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain." "But, once conceived, it haunted me day and night." "Object there was none." "Passion there was none." "I loved the old man." "He had never wronged me." "He had never given me insult." "For his gold I had no desire." "I think it was his eye." "Yes, it was this." "He had the eye of a vulture." "A pale blue eye with a film over it." "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold." "And so, by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus, rid myself of the eye forever." Ooh, some quite dark material already coming in here.

I'm hoping you're able to recognise that this is a very gothic text already.

So, what I'd like you to consider here is, well, what is the narrator's issue or problem with the old man? How does the narrator describe the old man's eye? And, finally, what does he decide to do about the old man? So, I'm gonna invite you now to pause the video while you either consider these questions independently, or discuss them with the people around you.

Off you go.

Again, some fantastic discussions here, and I'm hoping that these questions were able to give you a really clear insight into what kind of character we're dealing with here, in the form of the narrator.

Now, first of all, I was thrilled to hear many of you saying that the narrator tells us that it was the old man's eye that he has an issue with, because he felt it haunted him day and night.

Now, he describes the eye as a pale, blue eye of a vulture with a film over it.

And this is a really repulsive description, because, for those of you that don't know, a vulture is a large bird of prey.

And a vulture, basically, waits around for other animals to die, and then it picks bits off the dead bodies.

So, vultures are quite unpleasant and opportunistic creatures.

They're not, you know, they're not pleasant.

If somebody called you a vulture, it most definitely wouldn't be a compliment, okay? 'Cause they are quite, they're quite ugly creatures as well.

And the way that they get their food is quite, kind of, scavengery.

So, I think, you know, comparing the old man's eye to a vulture is quite an unpleasant comparison to draw here.

And, finally, the narrator decides to murder the old man because he hates his eye.

Now, just to revisit our impression of this narrator, he insisted in the beginning of the text that he was perfectly sane.

And, now, within the second paragraph, we can already see him plotting to kill the old man, because he doesn't like the eye, and it makes his blood run cold.

So, I'm hoping that what you're starting to realise is that we're being presented with a very unreliable and untrustworthy narrator who we don't think is of sound mind, because anybody, you know, with any level of reason, or rationale, or logic would not murder somebody for that reason, okay? So, what we're getting here is a very disturbed and very, potentially, dangerous character here.

So, let's check for understanding.

True or false.

The narrator plans to murder the old man for his gold.

I'm going to pause the video for a moment while you decide whether you think that is true, or whether you think it's false.

Off you go.

And a massive well done if you correctly identified that it is, in fact, false.

And what I'd like you to do now is the difficult part.

And I'd like you to justify why you think that that answer is false using one of the two justifications on screen now.

So, I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you read them both and decide which you think is the correct reason for the statement being false.

So, pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work, especially if you chose justification B.

The narrator's plans to murder the old man are because he cannot stand the old man's evil blue eye, and not because he's after his money.

So, well done if you were able to make that distinction.

Great reading.

Let's carry on.

"Now, this is the point." "You fancy me mad." "Mad men know nothing." "But you should have seen me." "You should have seen how wisely I proceeded." "With what caution." "With what foresight." "With what dissimulation I went to work." "I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him." "And, every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh, so gently." "And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head." "Oh, you would've laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in." "I moved it slowly." "Very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep." Oh, it gives me shivers reading this.

It's just so dark, isn't it? So, what I'd like you to consider now is, well, what is the narrator's argument for being sane? So, for being off sound mind.

It's one of our key words of the lesson.

How does the narrator get into the old man's room? And which gothic conventions have we seen thus far? So, again, I'm going to to invite you to pause the video while you consider those three questions, either independently or with the people around you.

Off we go.

Fantastic.

Again, some really good reading, and some very insightful suggestions made there.

So, well done if you identified that the narrator argues that he can't possibly be mad, because he's so methodical and careful.

Because he does everything according to a specific order.

He does it so very diligently.

He's like, "I can't be mad," okay? "There's no way that a mad man will be this careful and this attentive to detail." Now, every night at 12, we're told that the narrator carefully opened the old man's door.

That he thrust his lantern through and then his head, and that he did this all really cunningly and quietly.

So, that kind of shows how methodical the narrator was in his approach to killing the old man.

Now, the gothic conventions that we start to see here are this isolated and egotistical protagonist that is just typical of gothic literature, okay? This is clearly a very egotistical protagonist, because he keeps saying, you know, "Look at the way that I did this, how wise I proceeded, you should have seen me." And it's just really arrogant and egotistical.

We also get the impression that he's very isolated, probably because he's not quite a hundred percent sane.

We're also getting themes of violence and the threat of violence, because he says that he killed the old man.

So, we've got that theme of murder here.

And we're also seeing these dark settings, 'cause he's put in a dark lantern.

And the high levels of emotion in the narrator and his hatred of the old man's eye.

So, those are just some of the gothic conventions that we've already started to see in this text.

So, well done if you identified those.

Brilliant discussions and fantastic reading.

So, in a moment I'm gonna set you off to read the rest of the text independently.

And, as you do, I would just like to remind you of some of the interactive reading strategies that I would like to see you undertaking as you are reading through the rest of the text.

So, when we are reading, it's really important to read with a pen in hand, because you should absolutely be circling key vocabulary that you think might be significant or important.

You should also be underlining really important words and phrases that you might want to return to.

And using square brackets to draw attention to important paragraphs, again, that you think you might want to come back to when we start to analyse this text together.

It's also a really clever idea to put stars next to key ideas that you might have written down.

And, as you are reading through the text, just jotting some margin notes or brief annotations to help you remember your key inferences and ideas at that time.

Because you only get to read a text for the first time once, it's great to write down some of your first impressions and first ideas when you first read through the text.

So, those are some of the interactive reading strategies that I'm really hoping to see as you read through the rest independently.

So, with that in mind, here's our first task of the lesson.

I'd like you first to finish reading The Tell-Tale Heart in full, with your pen in hand, using your interactive reading strategies.

Then, once you have done that, I have given you a series of statements.

And these statements are events from the text, but they are not in chronological order.

Now, your job is to sort these events into chronological order to create yourself a plot summary of the text.

So, here are the events.

There's some here, and there's also some on the following slide.

And your task is to, as I said, put these in order, starting with the first and ending with the last, so that you have that full plot summary of this text.

I'm just going to take the slide back to the task slide, so that you know what you are doing.

So, first, finish reading the text.

Second, sort the statements into chronological order to create a plot summary.

I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you undertake both of those tasks.

I really hope you enjoy reading this text as much as I enjoyed reading it the first time.

I wish I could go back and read it for the first time again, because it is just utterly brilliant, and some of the twists and turns are utterly shocking.

So, it's a really exciting text to read for the first time.

So, I'm really excited for you to come back and share your thoughts with me.

So, pause the video, and off you go.

Enjoy.

Fantastic reading.

And I could see some of your mouths hanging open at certain points in that story.

And, I have to agree with you, there are some absolutely really appalling and disturbing moments, but what a fantastic and dynamic plot that Poe's created there.

I'm really glad so many of you enjoyed it as much as I did.

So, here's the correct order of events.

If you've got any wrong, please do correct them so that you do have that comprehensive plot summary for your own notes.

So, first of all, we meet the narrator, who tells us that he's not mad, he's just nervous.

Yeah, right.

The narrator then decides to murder the old man because of his hatred for his vulture like eye.

For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room and shines a light onto his face to see whether his eye is open or not.

And it never is, so he can't kill him.

However, on the eighth night, the narrator accidentally wakes the old man up.

Now, the old man, understandably, is terrified and calls out to his intruder.

But the narrator refuses to answer, and he's actually gets a kick and he's thrilled by the old man's fear.

So, again, we're starting to see him as quite a disturbed individual here.

Now the narrator's lantern reveals that the old man's evil eye is in fact open, and the narrator starts to believe that he can hear the old man's heart beating really loudly.

And, again, that is something that he enjoys.

We then see the narrator murdering the old man by smothering him with his own bed.

The narrator, then, and this is really disturbing, I think this is probably the part where most of your mouths open, dismembers the old man.

So, cuts his body up, and hides it under the floor boards.

Very strange and very disturbing behaviour.

Then, the police knock on the door reporting to have been summoned to the house because of a loud scream.

The narrator then lets them in and starts interacting with them really calmly.

And I think is feeling quite confident and arrogant in this moment of the text.

However, while speaking to the police, the narrator starts to believe, again, that he can hear the old man's heart beating.

The noise starts to escalate in the narrator's mind, and the narrator tries to cover the sound by talking incessantly, so talking constantly, and at a really high volume, and pacing up and down.

But the narrator cannot take any more of the loud beating of the heart.

He hysterically confesses, really dramatically, to the killing of the old man.

So, those are the correct order of events.

And, as I said before, what a dynamic and jam packed plot.

So thrilling, but so disturbing at the same time.

So, well done if you got the correct order.

Brilliant work, and let's move on.

So, as I said, for the second part of the lesson, we are now going to have some discussions about some of the key themes and characters from The Tell-Tale Heart.

So, Lucas read The Tell-Tale Heart as well as you.

And he said, "Well, I know that the gothic genre is all about exploring the darker side of humanity." And Sophia asks, "But what does the darker side of humanity actually mean?" And what I'd like you to do is discuss Sophia's question.

So, I'd like you to think, either in groups or independently, whichever suits you best, well, what does Lucas actually mean by that? What is the darker side of humanity? So, I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you discuss that question with the people around you if you can.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions.

And many of you hitting the nail on the head with this idea that the darker side to humanity means human beings' capacity for destruction.

So, this idea that human beings are naturally programmed to destroy other things and people, unfortunately.

And that is something that preoccupies quite a lot of gothic writers.

And many of the gothic texts that we've already looked at have this kind of theme of destruction, of human beings destroying something.

So, what I'd like you to do now is discuss, well, what has been destroyed in The Tell-Tale Heart? And I'm looking for a bit of creativity here, and a bit of out-of-the-box thinking.

Because, when we are talking about things that have been destroyed, we could talk about people, but there's also more abstract things that might be destroyed.

So, I'd like you to consider all the different possibilities of things that have been destroyed in this text.

So, I'm gonna invite you now to pause the video while you consider that question.

Again, either bullet pointing ideas independently, or discussing it with the people around you.

So, off you go to do that now.

Again, some really interesting discussions.

And it was great to see so many of you thinking outside the box just like I asked you to.

So, really well done for that.

Now, here are some of the things that you might have said were destroyed.

So, first of all, I think we can all agree that the life of an innocent, old man has been destroyed in the text, really, unfortunately.

But, also, in destroying somebody else's life, the narrator actually has destroyed his own life by taking the life of the old man.

Because, following his confession, I mean, we're never shown this, but we can assume that he was arrested, and taken and put into prison.

And that, in itself, is, you know, a destruction of a life, okay? Because that narrator's gonna have no quality of life in prison.

So, in that sense, he has actually destroyed his own life as well.

And one thing that I heard, that I actually really liked as well, that somebody mentioned, was this idea that, actually, in destroying the life of the old man, the narrator has further destroyed his own sanity, because we see him get gradually more delusional as the text progresses because of, arguably, the crime that he commits towards the beginning of the text and his delusions.

So, in committing this crime, he's actually destroyed his own sanity even further, because, by the end of the text, he's completely and utterly deranged and delusional.

So, he's destroyed his own sanity in that sense as well.

And, really well done to the person who came up with that, because that is such a perceptive point.

Really impressed, well done.

So, another discussion now.

Well, what is it that leads the narrator to destroy the old man's life? So, again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you discuss this question with the people around you.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions.

Now, as Lucas points out, the narrator continuously insists throughout the text that he isn't mad.

And, in the 19th century, the term, madness, was used to refer to anybody who displayed signs or symptoms of mental illness.

So, the term, madness, is actually not a very nice or empathetic term.

So, when we're using that term, madness, in discussions, I think that we have to be very conscious of the fact that it's not the most empathetic term.

And that, actually, knowing what we know about mental illness now, in some aspects, we should be treating this with a little bit more compassion than they would have in the 19th century.

And Sophia joins the conversation.

She says, "Well, do you think that the narrator is mad or do you think he isn't and why?" And I'm going to throw that out to you guys, because I'd like you to consider what you think of the narrator.

Do you think that he's truly mad? Do you think he's pretending to be mad? Do you think that he's perfectly sane? I'd like to know your thoughts.

So, what I'm going to do now is invite you to pause the video while you consider whether or not you personally think that the narrator is mad or not.

And I can't wait to hear all of your amazing ideas.

So, off you go and begin those discussions.

Again, thank you so much.

Let's come back together.

And some really interesting discussions there with a really diverse range of opinions, which is always lovely.

So, thank you very much for those discussions, and some fantastic and insightful suggestions made.

Now, Lucas wanted to share his thoughts with you.

So, obviously, that's absolutely fine.

Let's hear what he has to say.

And he said, "Well, I think that the narrator is mentally ill, yes." "I think he's delusional." So, he kind of believes irrational things.

And that he has preoccupations which drive his behaviour.

His hatred of the old man's eye is what drives him to commit this horrific crime.

And this seems quite a strange thing to obsess over.

So, Lucas here is suggesting that he thinks that the the narrator is mad, because of the motive that he has for killing the old man.

And I do have to agree with Lucas to some extent, because I think it's a very unusual reason to want to kill somebody.

You know, I'm not saying that there's any normal reason to want to kill somebody, but this in itself seems just very, very far fetched and very delusional.

So, I do have to agree with Lucas here, and thank you to him for sharing his ideas.

So, let's check for understanding before we move up.

Which of the following quotations supports the idea that the narrator is delusional? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you read the answer options and choose the one that you think best supports the idea that the narrator is, in fact, delusional.

Pause the video and off you go.

And a massive well done if you selected B and C, because I think that both of these quotations really well justify this kind of interpretation that the narrator is delusional.

Because, here, in answer B, "I fancied a ringing in my ears." That word, fancied, means I imagined a ringing in my ears.

And imagining things that are not really there, or kind of believing in things that are irrational, is a symptom of delusion.

So, therefore, that does support the idea that the narrator is delusional.

And, secondly, answer C, "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and rid myself of the eye forever." Again, clearly the eye is triggering some kind of, you know, very negative response in the narrator.

That is a delusional response, because it is just somebody's eye, and he clearly kind of, his hatred for this old man's eye is very irrational.

and that does make him delusional in my eyes.

So, well done if you got B and C.

I would agree with you.

And I think both these quotations really well evidence this idea that the narrator is, in fact, delusional.

So, Lucas wanted to contribute another opinion and idea about this text.

And he said, "Well, the narrator seems to lose control of his own emotions at the end of the story." "Maybe because of the guilt he feels or perhaps the paranoia that he feels at being found out." And I'd like you to discuss Lucas's idea in a lot more detail.

And I'd like you to think, well, do you think that guilt or paranoia does drive the narrator to come confess? And does his confession at the end of the text change your opinion of him at all, in any way? So, two really interesting questions there, and I'm expecting a diverse range of opinions, but we shall see.

I'm looking forward to hearing what it is that you have to say.

So, pause the video and discuss this question with the people around you, or just jot some ideas down in bullet points if you are working on your own.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions.

And, again, I was right, there was a real diverse range of opinion there, which is great, because that's what English is all about.

It's all about individual interpretations and debates.

So, thank you very much and well done.

So, onto the last task of the lesson now.

And Laura says, "Well, the most disturbing part of this story is the fact that the narrator tries to convince us that he's sane." Do you agree with this statement? And I'd like you to put yourself on the spectrum below using evidence from the text to justify your position.

So, here's our spectrum.

So, it runs from agree to disagree.

If you were to put yourself on the very far left hand side, on the agree side, you would be saying, yes, I one hundred percent agree with Laura.

I couldn't agree more.

And, equally, if you were to put yourself on the far right, you would be saying, I one hundred percent disagree with Laura.

There's not one part of that statement that I agree with.

Now, here's an example.

One of our old pupils, Aisha, she said, "Well, I think that the most disturbing part of this story is when the narrator murders the old man in cold blood because he states that the old man had never wronged him." So, here, Aisha has placed herself more on the disagree side, and she's justified it by saying that actually she thinks that the murder itself was the most disturbing part of the story because the old man hadn't done anything to the narrator.

It was an unprovoked attack, effectively.

So, there's an example of how you might justify your position on this scale.

So, what I'm going to do now is invite you to pause the video while you, first of all, decide where you want to put yourself on this spectrum.

You find your evidence.

And then, once you've done that, feel free to share your position with somebody else.

And share your evidence that justifies your position on the scale.

So, again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you undertake this task now.

And I'm really looking forward to hearing some of your ideas.

So, pause the video, and off you go.

Fantastic discussions there.

Now, here's a reminder of this statement that Laura made.

And she said, "The most disturbing part of this story is the fact that the narrator tries to convince us that he is sane." Now, here's how Lucas, who we know loves this text, because he's been involved in our discussions throughout the whole lesson, here's how he justified his position.

So, here, we see Lucas agreeing more with the statement.

And he said, "The narrator repeatedly tells us that he cannot possibly be mad because of his organisation." "This organisation disturbs me more, because he has executed the old man very meticulously," so, very carefully, "and purposefully, which I find horrifying." Now, I'd like you to discuss the following idea.

Unfortunately, although Lucas has raised a very, very intelligent and perceptive point, he hasn't actually supported his idea with a quotation.

And, until he does that, it's not as convincing as it could be.

So, what I would like you to do is help Lucas to find one quotation that he could use to justify his idea.

So, what I'm going to do now is invite you to pause the video while you do just that.

So, you will need to have your text open, flicking through the text, looking for a quotation to justify Lucas's opinion.

So, pause the video and off you go.

And really well done.

I could see many of you straight away selecting your quotations and thinking about how you could use it to justify Lucas's opinion.

Here's one of the quotations that you might have selected.

"You should have seen how wisely I proceeded." "With what caution." "With what foresight." "I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him." And, here, we see how meticulous the narrator really was.

It's all so very carefully planned, okay? He's very manipulative.

He actually goes as far as to say that he was really kind to the old man before he killed him to avoid suspicion.

And that, in itself, is really disturbing.

And that, to me, is the action of somebody who cannot possibly be sane, because he's so calculated.

So, here, Lucas is agreeing with Laura's statement.

And, now, he has been able to justify his opinion.

So, really well done for that.

Brilliant selection of evidence there.

So, to summarise the learning from today.

Well, first of all, we know that The Tell-Tale Heart is the story about the murder of an old man.

We understand that the narrator did not murder for money, but because he was frightened of the old man's blue eye.

And therefore, the narrator is presented as delusional and obsessive.

The narrator kills the man because he worries that a neighbour might hear the loud beating of his heart, which again shows his delusion.

The narrator then dismembers the body and hides it under the floorboards.

Before, finally, continuing to hear the beating heart of the dead man and hysterically confessing at the end of the text.

Thank you very much for coming to today's lesson.

It's been absolutely delightful to discuss this fantastic text with you, and hear all of your interpretations and your responses to it.

I really look forward to seeing you next time.

And I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.

See you later.