Teachers often ask students to consider the context in which something was written, or they ask students to consider who the author of a text is/was. This photo of Edgar Allan Poe is a helpful resource to use along with any of his texts, especially as a launch activity to have students guess at and explore the time period his writing is from in order to better understand the work itself and Poe’s word choices, characters, and topics.
A photo of Edgar Allan Poe in 1845, a few years before his death. The photo is a portrait of Poe from the shoulders up.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most well-known American writers. His work has been read, reprinted, and adapted into other forms of media for nearly two hundred years. This photo of Poe shortly before his death in 1849 can add context to any unit or lesson about him or his work.
- What time period is this photo from?
- How does this photo differ from current photos?
- How would you describe the subject in this photo?
- How can knowing about an author’s life and background help us better understand their work?
- To what extent should we consider who an author is in addition to their written work?
- How can “reading” a photo or other unconventional text help build analysis skills?
Academic Standards for English Language Arts-Pennsylvania
CC.1.3.7.D: Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text.
- Students can use this photo of Poe to discuss and research common roles and deportment of the time period before examining how narrators of different pieces of Poe’s writing fit or challenge those social roles and expectations.
CC.1.3.7.H: Compare and contrast a fictional portrayal of a time, place, or character and a historical account of the same period as a means of understanding how authors of fiction use or alter history.
- Using this photo as inspiration, students can research the time period or setting of a piece of writing in order to better understand how it influenced the writing itself.
- Teachers could use this photo as a starting point for a scavenger hunt, webquest, or independent research activity to learn about the culture and literature of the 1800s. This could be done many different ways, including by asking students to find photos and facts from a variety of categories (such as clothing, food, leisure activities, major historical events) and posting them on a shared bulletin board tool such as Padlet.
- Teachers can use this photo as an introduction to a unit on Poe to teach many skills, including author style or literary analysis. ReadWriteThink offers a Poe unit plan that could assist in teaching analysis using Poe’s writing.
- Teachers can use this photo along with a resource such as the first page of this worksheet for “The Raven” to help students make inferences about time period and language or word choice.
- Those who find Poe’s works too dark for younger students may protest lessons about him and his writing in younger grades.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- The American Library Association provides many different resources for educators on how to address challenges to a variety of texts.
- [Edgar Allan Poe, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front] / William Sartain: An alternate photo of Poe, taken earlier in his life.
- Tomb of Edgar Allan Poe, Baltimore, Md.: A photo of Poe’s burial place.
- Library of Congress recorded performance of “The Raven” (part 1 and part 2).
- NCTE blog post with Poe resources.
Edgar Allan Poe. , ca. 1904. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004672796/.