Conversations: The Fall of the House of Usher

We had some interesting conversations today in class about Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Fall of the House of Usher." The conversation prompt was LIFE AND DEATH IN POE'S "THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER." After spending 25 minutes or so thinking about the prompt, highlighting evidence and writing some notes, the conversations took on a life of their own, only dying when the bell tolled (see what I did there?). We made connections, had some big realizations:

1. That family tree that has no branches...? Yep, that's what it means...
2. Life and death are closely linked in this story; sometimes things that should be alive aren't, and sometimes things that should be dead aren't. And, that's all probably important, somehow.
3. A "speaking guitar" can say a whole lot.
4. The tarn is alive! The house is alive...not anymore! Lady Madeline is alive...no, she isn't...yes, she is...no, she isn't!

There were a lot of other big ideas discovered as we discussed. Check out the "map" of our conversations--I recorded our thinking as best I could (if you click on each image, you can read the text):

BLOCK 1:

BLOCK 3: