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"The Tell-Tale Heart" Booklet Project

A cut-and-staple booklet project guides high school students through post-reading literary analysis of Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' — narrator reliability, tone, theme, and symbolism — including a comparison task with Poe's 'The Black Cat.'
Grades
Grades 9–12, High School
File type
PDF
Preparation
Print ready

Updated Feb 16, 2023

Subject
Literature, Writing, ELA
Topic
Booklet Project, The Tell-Tale Heart
Preparation
Print ready

From the author

About this resource

If your students are reading The Tell-Tale Heart, you may be on the hunt for all the resources to pair alongside this renowned short story.

This resource is a The Tell-Tale Heart Booklet Project that was designed to give your students the opportunity to reflect on the text and show what they know.

For the teacher: Print the booklet pages back to back. The pages should be cut on the dotted lines and around the tabs. Put the pages in order and staple. It would be best to staple in one corner or at the top of the booklet. Stapling on the sides will cut off part of the project. Once the book is properly assembled, students will be able to work from page to page.

The pages are as follows:

1. The Narrator. Students will illustrate and write a reflection on what they envision the narrator to look like. Students will describe whether the narrator is reliable or unreliable and use evidence to support their answer.

2. Mini-Essays. There are 3 short writing prompts for students to respond to.

3. Style & Tone. Students will identify the mood Poe creates in the story and cite 2 pieces of textual evidence.

4. Theme. Students will determine a theme and reflect on how it is developed in the story.

5. Style & Tone. Students will reflect on the words Poe used to describe a certain event in the story.

6. Themes. Students will read The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe and compare and contrast the two stories.  

This resource was designed for 9th grade students and higher. This is great for independent work, but students may also enjoy discussing pages with a partner before formulating their individual answers.

An answer key is not included, as most pages are reflective writing pieces.

Here is a link to a similar resource in my store.

Here is a link to my store to enjoy other resources from me:

I can be contacted for questions and concerns at jennyezaki@gmail.com.

Enjoy!

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

  • Evaluate the reliability of the narrator using two pieces of textual evidence.

  • Analyze how Poe's word choice creates mood and tone, citing specific textual evidence.

  • Identify a theme in 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and explain how character, setting, and plot develop it.

  • Compare the narration of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' to Poe's 'The Black Cat.'

Teaching tips

  • Model the citation format once as a class, since every analytical box in the booklet asks for two supporting citations rather than opinion alone.

  • Assign 'The Black Cat' as a short homework read before the comparison page, since that page assumes students have already read both stories.

  • Before printing, review and relabel the strengths/weaknesses box that currently names 'Fitzwilliam Darcy' — a Pride and Prejudice character — since it does not match this story.

Skills covered

  • Narrator reliability analysis — students cite two pieces of textual evidence to argue whether the narrator is telling the truth.

  • Tone and mood analysis — students identify Poe's word choices and explain the mood those choices create.

  • Cross-text comparison — students compare the narration styles of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Black Cat.'

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

Why does one box in the booklet reference "Fitzwilliam Darcy" instead of a character from "The Tell-Tale Heart"?

That name does not appear anywhere else in the booklet and does not match any character in Poe's story; it reads as a leftover label from a different booklet template and should be relabeled before the page is used with students.

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