New
New
Year 8

A written analysis of 'The Tell-Tale Heart'

I can confidently draft, and redraft a written analysis of a literary text.

New
New
Year 8

A written analysis of 'The Tell-Tale Heart'

I can confidently draft, and redraft a written analysis of a literary text.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. It is important to consider the first version of your work a first draft and not the finished essay.
  2. Redrafting your critical writing is just as important as redrafting your creative writing.
  3. A clear and concise essay focuses on the writer’s use of methods.
  4. Successful essays offer a comprehensive explanation and exploration of the effects the writer’s methods.
  5. Short, embedded quotations make your essay more concise and coherent.

Common misconception

Students think that the first version of their work is the finished piece.

Redrafting work improves its quality, depth and coherence. Students should be encouraged to appreciate, and embrace the value of redrafting their work.

Keywords

  • Redraft - rewriting your work to improve it

  • Methods - any conscious choice the writer makes - this could be using a simile or choosing a specific word

  • Concise - using as few words as possible to express as much meaning as possible

  • Tentative - not absolute, certain or agreed

To emphasise the value of redrafting, teachers could live model a third draft of Laura's essay in learning cycle 2, to show how each draft continues to improve the quality of the response.
Teacher tip

Equipment

You will need access to the short story 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe. You can find a copy of this in the additional materials.

Content guidance

  • Depiction or discussion of serious crime
  • Depiction or discussion of mental health issues

Supervision

Adult supervision required

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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6 Questions

Q1.
What narrative perspective is 'The Tell-Tale Heart' written from?
Correct answer: first person
second person
third person
Q2.
What language method is used in the following quotation from 'The Tell-Tale Heart': "it is the beating of his hideous heart"?
personification
Correct answer: alliteration
simile
onomatopoeia
Q3.
Complete the quotation from 'The Tell-Tale Heart': "True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am ...?"
Correct Answer: mad
Q4.
Which of the following is not an example of the writer's method?
the words they use
the characters they create
the allusions they make
Correct answer: the publisher they use
the puncutation they use
Q5.
Complete the quotation from 'The Tell-Tale Heart': "To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly at the idea".
Correct Answer: chuckled
Q6.
Match the key vocabulary up to its definition.
Correct Answer:heinous,wicked and appaling

wicked and appaling

Correct Answer:concealed,to be hidden

to be hidden

Correct Answer:deranged,to not be of sound mind

to not be of sound mind

Correct Answer:aghast,horrified and shocked

horrified and shocked

Correct Answer:irrational,not based upon logic or reason

not based upon logic or reason

6 Questions

Q1.
Which question word forces you to think about the writer's use of methods?
what
Correct answer: how
why
which
Q2.
Which piece of punctuation does Poe use to show the narrator's escalating delusions in 'The Tell-Tale Heart'?
question mark
Correct answer: exclamation mark
full stop
speech marks
ellipses
Q3.
If an essay is concise, what does this mean?
it uses as many words as possible to express as little meaning as possible
it uses as few words as possible to express as little meaning as possible
Correct answer: it uses as few words as possible to express as much meaning as possible
it uses as many words as possible to express as much meaning as possible
Q4.
The writer's is any decision that the writer makes consciously.
Correct Answer: method, techniques
Q5.
Which of the following are examples of embedded quotations?
The narrator tells us: "I felt that I must scream"....
The narrator "felt" that "I must scream"....
The narrator said he "felt" that "I must scream"...
Correct answer: The narrator "felt that [he] must scream"...
Correct answer: The narrator "felt" that he "must scream"....
Q6.
What is the effect of this quotation from 'The Tell-Tale Heart': "I gasped for breath—and yet the officers heard it not"?
Correct answer: “Gasped” here shows the narrator’s sheer panic and loss of control.
Correct answer: "Gasped" shows that the feels suffocated by his delusions.
"Gasped" shows that the narrator is appalled by the police officers.
"Gasped" shows how excited the narrator is for his crimes to be discovered.

Additional material

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