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Hello everybody and welcome to today's lesson.
My name is Miss Halliday and I will be teaching you today.
In today's lesson, we're going to start discussing "The Tell-Tale Heart" in a lot more detail, looking specifically at the theme of madness and how Poe creates suspense throughout the text.
So without further ado, let's get started.
So today's lesson is called the Creation of Suspense in "The Tell-Tale Heart." And by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to identify the methods used by Poe to create suspense throughout the text.
So let's get started.
Here are some keywords that you will need for today's lesson in order to unlock your learning.
Let's start with suspense.
Now, suspense is a state of feeling quite anxious or excited about what might happen next in the text.
Now the word hubristic means excessively proud or arrogant.
And we see in "The Tell-Tale Heart" this really hubristic narrator who's very kind of arrogant and conceited.
And therefore, that makes him really unreliable.
And unreliable means when you're not to be relied or depended on.
So the narrator's kind of arrogance in the story makes him unreliable because we're seeing the world through his perspective and his perspective on himself is obviously inflated and very glamorised.
And therefore, this makes him a very unreliable and untrustworthy narrator who commits heinous crimes.
Now the word heinous means extremely wicked.
And the murder that the narrator commits in "The Tell-Tale Heart" is an extremely heinous crime, especially because he then dismembers the body and hides it under the floorboards.
Now, throughout the text, Poe uses something called irony to create suspense.
And irony is the expression of meaning by using language that suggests the opposite of the reality.
And we'll come to discuss what that means in a lot more detail and we'll look at some examples together.
So don't worry if you're a little bit flabbergasted at the moment by that word irony.
You will have a really clear understanding of what it means by the end of the lesson.
If you want to pause the video and write any of those definitions down, then please feel free to do so at your leisure.
So here's today's lesson outline.
We're going to begin by looking at the point of view that the narrative is told from before looking at the narrator's escalating in the second part of the lesson.
But let's start, first of all, by looking at point of view.
So as Andeep points out, the point of view means the perspective from which the story is told.
Now in "The Tell-Tale Heart", we meet the dreadfully nervous narrator and Andeep says, "Well, I think that he is a typical Gothic protagonist." And my question to you, or not really a question, but my request of you is for you to explain how Andeep might be right and what he's saying about the narrator being a typical Gothic protagonist.
So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you discuss with other people what you know about Gothic protagonists and try to explain how the narrator that we meet in "The Tell-Tale Heart" could be considered a typical Gothic protagonist.
So pause the video and have those discussions now.
Fantastic discussions and great to see so many of you remembering that Gothic protagonists are usually isolated and/or egotistical.
So really kind of arrogant and self-absorbed.
Now the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" is arguably extremely hubristic, so really arrogant and self-absorbed and egotistical.
And we see that kind of arrogance running throughout the text, but especially when he's describing kind of how cunningly he commits his crime.
We really see the narrator oozing with arrogance and hubris at that moment there.
So well done if you manage to remember what Gothic protagonists are like and make those connections to the narrator that we see in the telltale heart.
Brilliant start to the lesson.
So what I'm going to show you now are some of our Oak pupils' opinions and we're going to read these opinions together, and then discuss them in more depth.
So Aisha's opinion is that the narrator is extremely hubristic, so very arrogant, very conceited.
Lucas's opinion is that the narrator seems to be delusional and not of sane mind.
And Sam's opinion is that the narrator is untrustworthy or unreliable, so not to be depended on.
And finally, Alex's opinion is that the narrator is extremely dangerous, not just to the old man, but also to society more widely.
So there we have four people's opinions and what I would like you to do now is to find evidence from the text to support each of these pupil's opinions.
So what that's going to require you to do is to open up your copy of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and flick through it looking for evidence to support each of these ideas specifically.
Now, I don't want you to just choose the first bit of evidence that you come across.
I want you to be judicious.
I want you to really evaluate which piece of evidence you think best supports that student's opinion.
Now, there might be some quotations that you think you could use to support more than one of these opinions.
So for example, you might find a piece of evidence that supports both Sam and Alex's opinion.
But what you are going to have to do is evaluate and think very carefully about which piece of evidence best supports each statement by each pupil.
So this is quite a difficult task actually, and you need to make sure that you are thinking very carefully about the quotations that you select to make sure that you have picked the best and most convincing one.
So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you have a go at completing that task.
You can do this in pairs or you could do this independently.
It's completely up to you.
However you feel comfortable completing this task, please feel free to do it in that way.
So pause the video and off you go to find the best pieces of evidence possible.
I can't wait to see what you come up with, off you go.
Fantastic work and here's some of the evidence that you might have selected.
There is no right or wrong answer here.
So if you've got a different quotation from the one I'm about to show you, that doesn't make yours wrong.
It just means that, you know, Aisha's found something different to select.
So here's what Aisha found to support her opinion that the narrator is extremely hubristic.
"But you should have seen me.
You should have seen how wisely I proceeded." And I really like this quotation from Aisha here because I think it really does show the narrator's hubris, the fact that he's kind of blowing his own trumpet here and making out as if he's super cunning and that he's, you know, his approach to murder is just something to aspire to.
So he's really hubristic here.
So thank you, Aisha.
That's a great quotation to have picked.
Now Sam's opinion that the narrator is untrustworthy or unreliable in some way can be supported by the following quotation.
"They heard! They knew! They were making a mockery of my horror." Now here we see that, you know, lack of reliability because actually the police officers likely aren't making a mockery of the narrator's distress.
They're probably not laughing at him, they're probably not, you know, making little jabs about him or talking about him in front of him.
And therefore, we are seeing here how different the narrator's perception of reality is from the actual reality.
So he's seeing one thing and interpreting the scene in one way, but the reality is probably quite different.
So here we see that real difference between the reality of what's happening and the narrator's perception of what's happening.
And that's really important to remember because when you've got that first-person perspective, the perspective that you are shown doesn't necessarily mean that it's the absolute accurate objective perspective because the very nature of a first-person narrator is very subjective.
So in terms of Lucas's opinion that the narrator seems to be delusional and not of sane mind, well you might have chosen this quotation, "Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this?" And again, here we see that real hubris and the kind of arrogance and the fact that he's trying to make out as if he must be sane because he's so organised and meticulous.
But actually from where I'm sitting, that probably makes him more insane because, you know, it's not a crime of passion.
It's been very carefully planned and his whole motive is based on delusion.
He murders the old man because he hates the way that he looks, he hates his eye.
So therefore, that for me is delusional.
And this quotation is a really strong piece of evidence that Lucas has chosen to support his opinion.
And finally, Alex's opinion that the narrator is extremely dangerous, not just to the old man, but to society can be supported by this quotation.
"I then smiled gaily, to find the deeds so far done." And I think this part's really disturbing because here we see the narrator getting real pleasure out of the old man's fear and pain.
And I think that's what's truly disturbing in this story.
It's not just the fact that an old man has had his life taken away from him, but the enjoyment that we see the narrator get out of it initially before, you know, the guilt starts to drive him insane.
So here we see him as a danger to others because he gets such a thrill out of committing this crime.
So he might go on to commit further crimes to kind of regain that sense of thrill that he got from his first murder.
So well done if you selected any of the same evidence, but as I said, just because you selected a different piece of evidence, it doesn't mean that you are wrong.
So really well done there and great effort.
So let's go back to another discussion.
I'd like you to discuss.
Well, how does Poe characterise the narrator as unreliable? So how does Poe kind of create this narrator that we know we can't trust, that we can't depend on? So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you have a think about that question either independently or discuss it with the people around you, whatever suits you best.
So pause the video and off you go.
Fantastic discussions and some really great suggestions provided there.
So here's what Aisha had to say in response to the same question.
She said, "Poe characterises the narrator as unreliable from the very beginning of the story.
The narrator repeatedly tells us that he isn't mad, just dreadfully nervous.
And the fact that he constantly tries to convince us that he isn't mad makes me think that he might not be of sound mind." So here, Aisha's touching on the idea that actually, because he says it so many times, we get the impression that he's either trying to convince us or perhaps he's trying to convince himself that he's not mad, but he's definitely giving us the impression that he is, in some way, not of sound mind.
So I think that's a really, really clever idea from Aisha there.
And one of Poe's many methods that characterise this narrator as very, very unreliable.
So here's a full list of times that the narrator tries to convince us that he is not mad.
So let's have a look at where we see this in the text.
So here's a list of quotations and what I would like you to do now is to think, well, what is the effect of the narrator constantly telling us this alongside his heinous crimes? So he's telling us he's not mad.
But then alongside that, he's committing these actions.
So what's the effect of that kind of contrast? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you discuss that with the people around you, off you go.
Again, some really fantastic discussions there.
And I really liked how some people were providing the exact moments that these quotations come from and trying to illustrate how silly or how kind of ironic it is that the narrator's telling us he's not mad when we see the actions that he's committing.
And as Aisha points out, the narrator insisting that he isn't mad whilst he stalks and spies on an old man, sneaks into his house, watches him sleep, murders him, dismembers his body and hides it under the floorboards is actually very ironic.
So as Lucas points out, irony is where that intended or the right meaning is the total opposite of what the words express.
And I think that definition can be quite hard to grasp sometimes.
So just to put that in simpler terms, I think there's a really dark humour here and that's exactly what irony is.
There's almost humour in how out of touch the narrator is and how different what he says versus the reality of what he does is.
So irony is all about dark humour.
So what I'd like you to discuss now is, well, how does Poe use irony in the text? So how do we see this sense of irony in the fact that what the narrator says and what the narrator does seem very disconnected? So what I'd like you to do now is pause the video while you discuss that question either with the people around you or just have a little bit of a think on your own if you're working independently.
So pause the video and off you go.
And again, some really fantastic discussions there and it was great to see so many of you really grasping that concept of irony and understanding what irony means and how Poe is using it.
So in terms of some feedback, Aisha had this to say: "The narrator's insistence that he's saying is ironic because his actions suggest the complete opposite." So again, we're getting this idea that there's a kind of difference between what he says and what he does.
"The narrator's motive for murdering the old man is delusional.
The narrator seems to be trying really hard to convince us or himself of his lies." Okay, so we see the irony there because you know he is saying, "I'm not mad, I'm not mad, I'm not mad." And then, he's carrying out these really quite disturbing and unhinged actions.
And Lucas says, "Well as you say, we get the feeling that he's lying, which makes us view him as unreliable because we can't trust what he says." So here, Poe is using irony also to create suspense because we cannot trust what the narrator says.
We always feel somewhat uncomfortable and kind of out of place and out of touch.
And that really creates suspense because we just can't trust what the narrator is saying to be true.
So here we see Poe really using irony to create suspense because what the narrator is saying and what the narrator is doing really don't match up and that leaves us in a real place of discomfort and uncertainty which therefore creates suspense.
So let's check for understanding before we move on.
True or false? Poe uses irony to create suspense in "The Tell-Tale Heart." I'm going to give you a moment to pause the video while you decide whether you think that is true or whether you think that is false.
So pause the video and off you go.
And a massive well done if you correctly selected that it is in fact true.
Poe does use irony to create suspense in "The Tell-Tale Heart." And what I'm going to ask you to do now is tell me how that works.
So what I'd like you to do now is justify the reason as to why that is true by selecting one of the answer options from the two below.
So I'm going to invite you to pause video while you read both justifications and decide which you think is the correct one, off you go.
And fantastic if you selected a, the irony here lies in the fact that the narrator insists that he isn't mad but then proceeds to behave in a way that we would consider to be very mad or unhinged or deranged in some way.
So well done if you've got a.
You are absolutely right and really great understanding of how Poe is using irony in the text here.
So we're gonna think now about, well, how does Poe's use of an unreliable and hubristic narrator allow him to build suspense? So how does Poe manage to keep us on the edge of our seats throughout this whole story? Because we are.
You know, every single point in this story, we're thinking, oh what's he doing? What's he gonna do next? You know, what's gonna happen next? And we're left in this constant state of discomfort and also mistrust because we're really not sure what to make of the narrator and we're a bit concerned about what might happen next in the story.
So what I'd like you to do now is discuss those two questions.
How does Poe use that narrator to build suspense and how does he keep us on the edge of our seats throughout this story? And I'd like you to try and think specifically about the narrator within this because he's kind of the reason that we do feel that suspense.
But what is it about him that makes us feel that kind of suspense and feel that anticipation that we do when we read the story? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you consider those two questions, either with the people around you or thinking about them independently if you would prefer.
So pause the video and off you go.
Fantastic discussions and a really, really difficult set of questions there for you.
So I'm so impressed to hear so many incredible and really insightful responses to those questions there.
Now in response to the same questions, Lucas had this to say.
Lucas says, "The narrator's unreliable and hubristic nature makes him highly unpredictable.
And this means that we cannot predict what he will do next." And Aisha adds, "You're right! He doesn't seem to have any boundaries, so there seems to be no limit as to what he'll do next." And Lucas says, "Well, exactly! This keeps us in a constant state of discomfort and that creates suspense because we get the feeling that he will do something awful any minute!" And I think that this is just an absolutely brilliant idea because it is exactly that that creates a suspense because we know the narrator is, or we get the impression anyway that he is very much mad or not of sane mind, that leaves him capable of basically anything.
You know, we've already seen him murder an old man for absolutely no reason and chop his body up and hide it under the floorboards.
That very much leaves us to question what on earth he's going to do next.
And because he's presented as so irrational and so delusional, it's not even like we can start to predict what he's going to do.
There doesn't seem to be much of a reasonable trigger for his violence or his kind of delusions.
And therefore, that really leaves him open to pretty much anything.
So throughout this entire text we're worrying, we're in that constant state of anxiety because we cannot predict what he's going to do next.
And that is what suspense is.
It's that worry, it's that anxiety about what might happen next.
So thank you to you for your fantastic discussions and thank you to Aisha and Lucas for sharing their thoughts too.
So onto our first task of the lesson, we're gonna consider the narrator's point of view and how this helps Poe to build suspense.
You are going to complete the following sentences in order to do this.
First of all, Poe's narrator is characterised as unreliable because, and you're going to find me a quotation from the text and explain how it shows that he is unreliable.
So here I want you to prove to me that the narrator is unreliable.
The second sentence you're going to finish is Poe's narrator is characterised as unreliable, but.
And here, I'd like you to think about but what are the narrator's views on his own sanity? Does he think he's insane or not? And finally, Poe's narrator is characterised as unreliable, so.
And I want you to tell me here, why does Poe characterise the narrator as unreliable and how does that help him to build suspense? So what I'm gonna invite you to do now is pause the video while you formalise your ideas in these three written responses.
I can't wait to see what you come up with.
So pause the video and off you go to complete the task.
Brilliant, brilliant work, and it was great to see so many of you having your copy of the text open and looking for those quotations to support your ideas.
So here's what you might have written for each of the sentence prompts.
Poe's narrator is characterised as unreliable because he's characterised as delusional.
So the fact that he's delusional makes him very unreliable.
His hatred of the old man's pale blue eye which motivates him to kill him and his conviction that he's hearing the sound of the dead old man's heart beating suggests that the narrator is not of sound mind.
And this therefore makes it difficult for us to trust his point of view 'cause we're not sure that he's telling the truth.
Now, for the second prompt, you might have said Poe's narrator is characterised as unreliable but he refuses to accept his own delusions, stating that he's simply just dreadfully nervous rather than mad.
Now this is ironic, given that he makes these claims whilst murdering and dismembering an old man.
So really like this use of the word irony here to show the fact that there is a real disparity between what the narrator says and what the narrator does.
And that, in itself, creates suspense.
And finally, Poe's narrator is characterised as unreliable so that he can effectively build tension by unsettling us throughout the narrative.
The narrator's lack of reliability makes him unpredictable, which creates suspense as we don't know what he's going to do next, which keeps us in a constant state of anxiety and discomfort that is typical of Gothic literature.
So moving on to the second part of the lesson now where we're going to look at the narrator's escalating delusions.
So as always, we're going to start with a discussion.
I'm going to show you two diagrams in just a moment and you are going to decide which of those two diagrams you think best represents what happens to the suspense as the story progresses and why.
So first diagram is here.
You will notice on the left-hand side, we've got suspense and tension.
So obviously, the higher up that line is, the more suspense and tension that we feel.
And along the bottom, we've got the plot.
So this is kind of as the story progresses, how much suspense and tension are we getting? So the first diagram suggests that there is, as the story continues, the suspense rises.
And the second diagram suggests that as the story con progresses and continues, the suspense decreases.
So we feel less suspense and tension.
So pause the video now while you decide which diagram you think best represents what happens to the tension as the story progresses, off you go.
And well done if you selected a.
As the story continues and progresses, the suspense increases and we're going to look at how that's done in just a moment.
So I would like you to think first.
Well, why does the suspense increase as the story progresses? And I'd like you to think, as a little bit of a hint here, about how we respond to the narrator and how that influences how much suspense we feel.
So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you discuss that with the people around you or jot your ideas down independently if you would prefer.
Pause the video and off you go.
Fantastic discussions and well done to those of you that pointed out, like Lucas, that "The suspense increases as the narrator's delusions seem to escalate.
As the narrator becomes more delusional, the suspense increases because he becomes more unpredictable." So really kind of tying in those ideas from earlier in the lesson that the fact that the narrator is delusional makes him unpredictable and that creates more suspense because we have no idea what he's going to do next and we know that he's capable of anything.
So we feel quite worried about what his next actions will be.
So well done if you got that.
So here's our suspense graph, okay/ We have the kind of story progressing and the suspense increasing.
What I'd like you to do is find quotations and plot them on the graph to show the narrator's escalating delusion.
So you're basically looking for evidence that the narrator's delusions are getting worse as the story continues.
So I'd like you to select maybe four to five quotations that show you the narrator's delusion getting worse throughout the story.
So here's a quick example to get you started so you know what kind of thing you're looking for.
So for example, near to the beginning of the story, we find out that the narrator has made up his mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid himself of the eye forever.
So here we see the narrator's delusion because we see his irrational fear and hatred of the old man's eye.
So what I'm going to do now is invite you to pause the video while you go away and find quotations from the text that show us that the narrator's delusion is getting worse as the story progresses.
I can't wait to see what evidence you've selected.
So pause the video and off you go to do that now.
Fantastic work, so here's what you might have found.
So the next quotation you might have selected that shows the narrator's delusion escalating is this one: "Ha! Would a mad man have been so wise as this?" So here we see him again trying to convince us that he's not mad whilst he's plotting the murder of an innocent old man.
You might have selected this one: "All in vain; because death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim." So again, here we're seeing this kind of delusion because he's almost describing himself as a personification of death, which shows that he's kind of thinks very highly of himself and he is got somewhat delusions of grandeur, I would say, here.
And again, he's kind of marvelling at the way in which he stalked his victim and that shows us how delusional he is here in the middle of the text.
Now here's when the narrator starts to hear the heartbeat and he says, "It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! Do you mark me well?" So again, here we're seeing his delusions because he's imagining things that aren't really there.
And then, we also get this quotation here: "I smiled, for what had I to fear?" And this is the moment when the police come to visit him and he's delusional if he thinks he has nothing to fear because he's just killed a man and hidden his body under the floorboards.
I think that gives him something to fear.
So here again we see him as utterly delusional.
And finally at the very end of the story, we see his delusions really kind of come to a climax and he starts to break down and lose control.
And he says, "Almighty God! No, no! They heard! They suspected! They knew! They were making a mockery of my horror!" And again, we see him as delusional because that's probably not the reality of what was happening.
That is an imagined perception of what's going on around him.
So here we can really clearly see the narrator's delusions escalating.
So well done if you selected any of that evidence.
So here are those quotations that we've just found in order of appearance.
And what I'd like you to do now is discuss, well, what do you notice about the sentence lengths as the story goes on? And what do you notice about Poe's use of punctuation? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you look at those quotations and see what you think about how Poe's using sentence structure and punctuation here.
So pause the video and off you go.
Fantastic discussions and many of you absolutely hitting the nail on the head that obviously there is a pattern to the way that Poe uses sentence lengths and punctuation here.
So let's have a look at that pattern now.
So as Lucas points out: As the story progresses, Poe uses shorter sentences to reflect the narrator's escalating delusion.
And we see this really clearly at the end when he's saying, "Almighty God! No, no! They heard! They suspected! They knew!" You can see they're really short, snappy sentences that show his escalating delusions and his panic and his hysteria because he's losing control of his own sanity.
And the short sentences kind of show that his thought process kind of breaking down 'cause he's not capable of sustaining this kind of sane thought for long enough.
So here, we really see him as very kind of out of control and hysterical.
And Laura adds: Well, Poe also uses exclamation marks to show the narrator's escalating panic and hysteria as well.
So again, if you look at that quotation on the left-hand side, we see lots of exclamation marks very close together and that shows us his kind of panic and his loss of control.
And actually that, in itself, creates suspense because his heightened emotion might cause him to turn violent again.
We've already seen him commit a heinous crime out of, you know, pure kind of hysteria.
He might do it again at the end.
So we're kind of worrying about is he going to kill the policeman here? We we're not quite sure, but these kind of exclamation marks and these shorter sentences really reflect the narrator's panic and loss of control in that moment.
So well done if you got that, great work.
So let's check for understanding.
Which of the following methods does Poe use to create suspense in the story? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you read the answer options and decide which you think are Poe's methods in creating suspense, off you go.
And a massive well done if you selected a and c.
Poe uses exclamation marks and shorter sentences to show us the narrator's hysteria and loss of control, which creates suspense because we're not sure what he's going to do next.
So onto our final task of the lesson.
Jun has written some analysis about how Poe create suspense in his story.
And I'd like you to read through Jun's analysis and use the checklist to assess his work and to set him a target so that he can improve his work as well.
So here's our checklist.
You know, we're looking for Jun to identify a method, include a quote, justify ideas, link back to the question, and use that tentative language to show that, you know, we are not the writer, we are just making, you know, educated guesses about the writer and what they were trying to achieve.
So we're using words like may and could to reflect that.
Here's Jun's question: How does Poe create suspense in the story? And here's what he wrote in response: Poe creates suspense in "The Tell-Tale Heart" through the use of an unreliable narrator and his escalating delusions.
Poe uses his sentence structures and punctuation to reflect the narrator's deteriorating state of mind.
This is most evident at the end of the story when the narrator cries, "Almighty God! No, no! They heard! They suspected! They knew!" Here, the short sentences and punctuation show his hysteria.
So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you reread Jun's response and check off what he has done well and what he has been successful at against the checklist and the success criteria that we've given you here.
You're then going to set Jun a target so that he can improve his work.
So pause the video while you assess Jun's work.
I can't wait to see what target you give him, off you go.
Fantastic and I feel like we've got many future teachers in the room 'cause I was really impressed by your assessment of Jun's work and how well you were able to identify successful parts of his response.
So I think many of you have a career ahead of you in teaching.
Well done for that task.
So let's have a look, first of all, at what Jun has done well.
First of all, Jun has identified a technique and a method because he said that Poe has created suspense through the use of the unreliable narrator.
So here, the unreliable narrator in himself is a method, but Jun goes on to say specifically how the unreliable narrator is created and it's through the use of short sentences and punctuation.
So Jun very much has identified the writer's method and technique.
Has Jun included a quote? Yes, he has and he's included one of the quotes that we've discussed quite a lot this lesson, which is brilliant because it's a fantastic quote.
So yes, Jun has included a quote.
Has June justified his ideas? Absolutely, he has because he said, "Well, this is most evident at the end of the story." And he's also said, "Here, the short sentences and punctuation could show his hysteria." And that word show tells us that he has explained and justified his ideas.
So yes, he has done that.
Now, has Jun linked back to the question? Has he talked about how Poe create suspense, again, at the end of his paragraph? Here, the short sentences and punctuation could show his hysteria.
Unfortunately, no, he hasn't.
Okay, so that might be something we want to set as Jun's kind of next steps, I suppose.
But let's have a look at whether he's used tentative language.
Well, yes he has because he said "Here, the short sentences and punctuation could show." So here, he's kind of showing that kind of element of being more tentative because Jun is not the writer.
He doesn't know for certain, but he's making an educated guess.
So in terms of Jun's target, well, what we're wanting to set him is linking back to the question because he hasn't done that.
So what we're going to try and do now is help him to link back to the question.
So I've given you a sentence starter here.
This creates suspense because.
So here, I want you to really link back to that question and help Jun to explain exactly how this creates suspense.
So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you have a go at finishing Jun's response, adding in that link back to the question and that explanation of exactly how that, you know, short sentences and punctuation use creates suspense.
So pause the video and off you go to help Jun improve his work.
Fantastic work, some really good responses there.
Now, Jun also had a go at this because I gave him the feedback that we've decided on as a group, and this is what he added.
So I'm gonna go from the word here.
So we've got "Here, the short sentences and punctuation could show his hysteria and his lack of control at the end of the story.
This creates suspense because as the narrator becomes more delusional, he becomes more of unpredictable, which keeps us in a constant state of tension, as we realise he could be capable of anything." So here, these short sentences, these exclamation marks show how hysterical and out of control the narrator has become and therefore how unpredictable he's become.
And that, in itself, creates suspense.
So really well done to Jun for amending his response.
And we can give June a big tick in that box now because he has smashed that part of the success criteria.
So really well done there Jun and really well done to you.
So to summarise the learning from today, well first of all, the narrator in the story is extremely hubristic, unreliable and unpredictable because he's delusional.
The narrator's delusions are what make him unpredictable, which makes the story suspenseful because we never know what's going to happen next.
Poe also uses irony, if you remember in the story, to create suspense because the narrator says that he's not mad, but his heinous actions suggest otherwise, okay? So what he says and what he does don't match up.
Furthermore, Poe shortens his sentences and uses more expressive punctuation to reflect the narrator's escalating delusion towards the end of the story.
And this creates suspense because the narrator becomes out of control and we therefore feel anxious about what he might do next.
Thank you very much for coming to today's lesson.
It's been lovely to share ideas with you and look at how Poe craft suspense across the text.
I look forward to seeing you next time and thank you so much for all your contributions.
See you later!.