Item description

Promote active engagement with fiction, support the development of close reading analysis skills for high school, and evaluate general reading comprehension with this bundle of resources for teaching the Gothic short story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe. Included are the following: a plot-based quiz, a worksheet composed of rigorous close reading questions, a craft analysis activity, the public domain narrative, and answer keys. Materials are delivered in printable Word Document and PDF formats. 

By completing the quiz, students will demonstrate knowledge of the following:

• Point of view
• The location from which the narrator tells the story
• The stated fate of the narrator
• The narrator’s rationalization of his behavior
• The “immediate purpose” of the narrative
• The narrator’s feelings toward animals
• The general demeanor of the narrator’s wife
• The fate of the narrator’s first cat
• A devastating event affecting the daily lives of the narrator and his wife
• The distinguishing characteristic of the second cat
• The effect of the second cat’s affection on the narrator
• The fate of the narrator’s wife
• The resolution

By completing the close reading analysis worksheet, students will:

• Identify what the text states explicitly and implicitly
• Articulate the narrator’s intent in a given excerpt
• Isolate a false statement from factual details associated with a given excerpt
• Examine the narrator’s modes of thinking to discern and articulate what he identifies as the cause(s) of his current circumstances
• Analyze a given excerpt to discern its primary function
• Apply knowledge of the anaphora to an excerpt
• Apply knowledge of simile to an excerpt
• Apply knowledge of hyperbaton to an excerpt
• Apply knowledge of paradox to an excerpt
• Apply knowledge of alliteration to an excerpt
• Examine cause and effect relationships
• Conduct brief research on Roman mythology to discern and articulate why the name Pluto carries symbolic value
• Analyze the narrator’s past behaviors and statements to make logical inferences about the cause of a destructive fire
• Identify textual details to support the claim that the second cat never existed
• Use logic and textual evidence to support the claim that the narrator feels subconscious guilt over the murder of Pluto
• Articulate why the narrator may be resentful of his wife
• Articulate how the narrator exhibits hubris and how hubris contributes to plot development
• Write with clarity, logic, and precision

By completing the craft analysis activity, students will perform the following task(s):

• Develop a greater understanding of how Edgar Allan Poe used descriptive language, characterization, setting, connotation, and various literary devices in “The Black Cat” to establish an eerie mood that is consistent with the horror and supernatural fiction genres