POE: Cause of Death - Theory #1 - Brain Tumor

Edgar Allan Poe died under mysterious circumstances at a hospital in Baltimore on October 7, 1849. It was 175 years ago this week! His family and friends back in Richmond didn't even know he was sick until after he was buried in an unmarked grave in the family plot.

No one knows quite how he died. He was found in a tavern in Baltimore on Friday, October 3, by a printer named Joseph Walker, who recognized the famous poet and writer. It was Election Day, and the tavern doubled as a voting location. Walker observed that Poe was semiconscious and dressed strangely in a crumpled shirt, dirty hat, and pants that did not fit him. He was not coherent enough to explain how he arrived at such a state, and he quickly became even more delirious. He was taken to a hospital in Baltimore, where he died four days later. The official cause of death was phrenitis or swelling of the brain, but many conditions can cause that state.

Much speculation has arisen over the years to explain Poe's sudden and mysterious death. Modern science can help us understand one theory, which holds that Poe died of a brain tumor.

Twenty-six years after his death, Poe was exhumed and moved to a better location in the Baltimore graveyard, where a proper monument had been built in his honor. As workers were digging up his coffin, it fell apart. One of the workers observed that a rock-like mass was rolling around in Poe’s skull.

 

Newspaper reports of that time concluded that the think in his skull was Poe’s brain. Scientists today know that the mass could not have been brain matter because the delicate soft tissue is one of the first things to decompose after death. Matthew Pearl was an author who wrote about Poe’s death. He asked a forensic pathologist what the mass might have been. The pathologist confirmed that a brain would not turn into a hard, calcified mass after death, but a brain tumor definitely could.

To find out more about the mysterious death of Poe, read my new book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles. You can preview the entire book for free until January 2, 2025 on Net Galley. Find out details HERE. Also, watch this BLOG for more fascinating Cause of Death Theories coming each week in October. See this month's free literacy activity on Writing Scary Stories.

Sign up HERE for the Carolee Dean, Author newsletter and receive a FREE digital copy of my book, No Gift for Man. You will also receive monthly updates, book news, and FREEBIES. 

Authentic Writing Experience for October - Writing Scary Stories

 

In celebration of the release of my new book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles, coming October 15, this month's Authentic Writing Experience is about Scary Stories, and it's just in time for Halloween. We all love scary stories - if they're not too scary. They are great for sitting around a campfire or making a cold winter night more interesting. All cultures have scary stories. Scary stories help us face our fears. They give us a way to deal with difficult concepts like death.

Did you know that Frankenstein was created by Mary Shelley when she was 18 years old on a rainy afternoon when she and her husband, Percy Shelley, and their friend, Lord Byron, were trapped indoors? They didn't have Netflix or cable TV, so they spent their time writing ghost stories and sharing them with each other. Would you like some real-life inspiration for a scary story? Watch the video on the HISTORY website that tells how Mary Shelley carried around her husband's heart after he died.

Or maybe your students would get inspired from reading about the many theories on the death of Edgar Allan Poe. It is a mystery that has never been solved. I explore several theories in the background section of The Raven Remix. This month I will be sharing some of them here on my blog so keep watching. The first Cause of Death Theory may be found HERE. 

Writing can be intimidating for many students. Therefore, I'm including a fun fill-in-the-blank story starter for this month's AWE activity.  I included a mini word matrix for the base element SPECT (as in specter). There also are a series of questions to help students build a complex sentence. To learn more about using the matrix for Structured Word Inquiry and morphology instruction, see my blog post HERE. Find the downloadable PDF for the Scary Story Starter HERE. It includes the three pages seen below.

And don't forget to check out The Raven Remix. The five animals on the cover all come from stories by Poe. He is considered by many to be the father of American Gothic Horror. Elements of several of his stories appear in The Raven Remix.  He faced much death and tragedy in his life, and it clearly inspired his writing. You may preview the entire book on Net Galley from now until January 2, 2025. Find out details HERE. 

Sign up for my newsletter HERE and receive a free copy of my first decodable book, No Gift for Man. Don't miss any of the fun-filled activities coming up for A Year of AWE: Authentic Writing Experiences.

The Raven Remix - Just in Time for Halloween and Dyslexia Awareness Month

I'm thrilled to announce that my new decodable chapter book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles will be available for purchase on October 15 in paperback and hardcover - Just in time for Halloween and Dyslexia Awareness Month! You can pre-order the e-book on Amazon. From now until January 2, 2025, you can preview the entire book for free on Net Galley and share the story with your students. If you do, please leave a review. That's the purpose of Net Galley. You may use the QR code above or use the NET GALLEY LINK. 

Here are directions for how to read Net Galley books on your computer - https://netgalley.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003979634-How-do-I-read-digital-review-copies-on-my-computer.

Here are some early reviews:

“Dean transforms the darker tones of Poe into imaginative humor and mystery. The Raven Remix remains true to Poe’s brilliant use of language, while this delightful, decodable poem provides readers access to the actual meaning of ‘language arts.’ Dean’s work of art is relatable and fun and supports all levels of readers. The Raven Remix can be used in reading instruction and vocabulary development with students from the 5^th/6^th grades and up, though younger students might enjoy hearing this poem for the lyric rhyming. - Paula Moraine, M. Ed. Author of Helping Students Take Control of Everyday Executive Functions-The Attention Fix and Autism and Everyday Executive Functions

 
“The Raven Remix will help increase your students’ reading skills while inspiring a sense of wonder. It combines the research, the poetry of storytelling, and a compelling narrative to weave a thought-provoking book perfect for students in 5^th grade and higher. Dean has provided a simple introduction to Poe’s exciting work while increasing awareness of the lifelong resilience that many students need. It should be on every classroom shelf.” - Cynthia Barton, LSP, MA, PA, School Psychologist

“Weltner’s grayscale illustrations effectively match the grim tone of Poe’s “The Raven,” and their cartoonish style will engage young readers and improve their comprehension of the text…An unusual alternative introduction to Poe…” Kirkus Reviews

Krista Weltner created the cover image for the Raven Remix and the Illustrations. One of her illustrations from the book is below. A young man visits the Ed A. P. Book Stop, Pet Shop, Inn & Grill to be greeted by a most unusual host. The boy opens a book, and animals from various Poe short stories emerge. The background section includes exciting facts about Poe's life and interesting theories about his death.

Krista is a talented young artist with dyslexia. See the INTERVIEW I did with her last October for Dyslexia Awareness Month when her picture book series came out.

Watch this blog for a month full of scary stories and Poe Trivia. His death is still one of the great unsolved mysteries, but many intriguing theories have developed over the years.

Sign up HERE for the Carolee Dean, Author newsletter and receive a FREE digital copy of my book, No Gift for Man. You will also receive monthly updates, book news, and FREEBIES. 

Using Narratives to Teach Morphology through Structured Word Inquiry

Structured Word Inquiry is a process used to engage learners in the scientific investigation of word parts and their morphology, etymology, and phonology. It looks at how those elements work together for both meaning and spelling, as well as how they are connected to other words.

The basic idea behind SWI is that English is a highly structured language when you understand the history of words and their underlying meaning. For instance, SWI treats homophones like to, too, two as terms that have important spelling variations to help signal meaning. Rather than being irregular, the word two makes sense when looking at related words like twin and twice. 

Peter Bowers Ph.D. is the founder of WordWorks Literacy Centre in Ontario. He coined the phrase Structured Word Inquiry (SWI). For more information about SWI, watch his  TedX Youth Talk entitled "Make Spelling Joyful Through Scientific Inquiry." He gives tips for "cultivating curiosity" for spelling in students by focusing more on meaning and less on sound.  It's 18 minutes long, and he recommends it as an introduction to the big picture of SWI.

Peter's 2009 book - Teaching How the Written Word Works: Using Morphological Problem-Solving to Develop Students' Language Skills & Engagement with the Written Word may be found HERE. I used his book as a reference when I was creating my SWI activities for my activity books. Peter is giving several workshops this fall, and many of them are online. Check out Peter Bowers Workshops.  You may also want to check out his latest Newsletter with tons of great information including a link to a free chapter of the children's book Is English Nuts.

In my most recent set of narrative-based interventions found in my Gods and Gifts Activity Book, I expanded the section on morphology to include activities for Structured Word Inquiry. My HOT ROD Decodable Books and the accompanying activity books focus on using narratives to improve decoding, reading comprehension, writing, and speech. One of the ways I do that is by looking at the underlying building blocks of language, like morphology. 

Teaching morphology using Structured Word Inquiry and word sums was a natural addition. The mini-matrix above uses the base element spect - "to see, look, observe." I created it using Neil Ramsden's Mini Matrix-Maker, found at https://www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix/. It is fun to note that my decodable book Gods and Gifts, Three Greek Myths Retold, is based on Greek Mythology, so exploring Latin and Greek influences was a fun addition.

Although I previously included activities for morphology and base elements in my award-winning Hank the Tank Activity Book, I did not include specific Structured Word Inquiry activities. Therefore, I recently created a free supplemental activity for students online using Boom Cards. You can sign up for a free Boom  Card membership at https://wow.boomlearning.com  

Created with Mini Matrix Maker, at www.neilramsden.co.un/spelling/matrix

To preview my FREE SWI activity for tract, go HERE. If you explore the word matrix activity, you will better understand how you might apply SWI and word sums to words your students encounter in stories. For a small fee, I also have a matching game based on tract HERE.  To explore all 15 of the online games connected to Hank the Tank, see the Hank the Tank Bundle. Many activities are free, including digital digraph flash cards and Sount Tracks. That resource has moveable letter pieces for tracking sound changes in words and non-words.

Watch for my next Activity Book coming this fall, which is based on The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles. The decodable book will be available in paperback and hardcover on October 15 and is available for pre-order now as an ebook on Amazon. If you order the book, please leave a review!

Sign up for my newsletter HERE and receive a free copy of my first decodable book, No Gift for Man. Don't miss any of the fun-filled activities coming up for A Year of AWE: Authentic Writing Experiences. The September writing activity is Museum Fun.

Authentic Writing Experience for September - Museum Fun

Consider the literacy impact of field trips. Whether you are a teacher, a homeschooler, or simply a parent looking for something to do when school is not in session. Why not check out your local museum? This month's Authentic Writing Experience is all about museum fun. Museums are perfect for both family adventure and class field trips. Your city or town probably has some type of museum. The less well-known it is, the more unique it may be to your location. A trip to a museum may even inspire creativity! The two museums below influenced the setting of my new book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles.

The image on the left is The Edgar Allan Poe House in Baltimore.  In 1832, Poe moved into this house with his aunt, Maria Clemm, his grandmother, Elizabeth Cairnes, and his first cousin, Virginia, who later became his wife. This house where Poe got his start as a short story writer is now a museum open to the public. 

The image on the right is the Poe Museum in Richmond, VA. Poe lived in Richmond with the Allan family for most of his early life. Although he did not live in this particular house, it was around at that time and likely a place he visited. It is the oldest house still standing in Richmond and contains items from places that Poe did live such as his writing desk, a bed, and a staircase. I first visited the Richmond location two years ago when my daughter started graduate school at VCU. I returned this past May when I was there for her graduation. Chris Semtner, the curator and the artist who created the raven painting in the photo, took me on a personal tour where I learned fascinating details about Poe's life and his strange death. The cause is still a mystery. In October, in celebration of Halloween and the Day of the Dead, I will explore a new theory about how Poe died each week. Thanks to the two museums above for allowing me to use photos of their locations in my book.

Although my setting for The Raven Remix is fictitious, it takes place in an old house that has become the Ed A.P. Bookstop, Pet Shop, Inn & Grill. A boy stops by for a visit and meets the host - Ed. When he opens a mysterious book with a raven on the cover, animals appear from various stories by Poe. You can find five of them on the cover. The ebook version of The Raven Remix is currently available for preorder. The paperback and hardcover are coming May 15.

It has been quite a year for museums. While on the East Coast, my husband and I also went to Washington D.C. and visited several Smithsonian Museums, including the Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum, and the Museum of the American Indian. I spent a long time going through the Wright Brothers exhibit below.

While attending the ALA conference in June, we visited the USS Midway. It's a museum inside of an aircraft carrier. 

Most museums now have self-guided audio tours in many languages. This is a great example of how Universal Design, which strives to make things accessible for those with disabilities, is beneficial for everyone. A student with a reading disability can listen to the audio tour rather than reading long passages of information posted next to displays. 

For this month's Authentic Writing Experience, I suggest having students create a photo tour of a museum. They can take just a few photos or several. Then, they may generate a caption to go with each photo. It can be a few words or a description of several sentences. It's a great way to practice summarizing a lot of information into a few key sentences.

PHOTO TOUR

1. Ask if it is permissible to take photos of the exhibits. Some information may be copyright protected, and flash bulbs may damage artwork, so ask first.

2. Take a self-guided audio tour of the museum. 

3. When you come to a display that is of interest, pause the Audio.

4. Open the NOTES section of your phone and take a photograph.

5. Turn on your microphone and record a short summary of what interests you about the display.

6. Turn the audio tour back on and continue the tour, stopping to take photographs and make notes along the way.

7. Compare your photos with those of family members or classmates. It is surprising to see what catches the attention of different people. You may have seen things that no one else noticed.

Below is an example from my tour of the USS Midway. 

This photograph shows the uniforms of the servicemen.  

This is the sick bay. During a battle, men sometimes had to be treated 

in the mess deck where the food was served  

Six people shared this tiny bunk space.   

They kept their personal possessions in a drawer 

underneath the mattress.   

Museums will often offer scavenger hunts for kids. If you turn in the one for the USS Midway, you get a free pair of wings at the end of your tour.

Have fun visiting museums this school year. They are very context-rich environments and allow kids to explore special interests. If you can't take a physical tour of a museum, consider sending students on a virtual tour. 

Be sure to return to my blog each week in October to learn theories about Poe's mysterious death.

Sign up for my newsletter HERE and receive a free copy of my first decodable book, No Gift for Man. Don't miss any of the fun-filled activities coming up for A Year of AWE: Authentic Writing Experiences.

Free Structured Literacy Symposium

Renowned speaker Barbara Wilson is giving a FREE 90-minute Virtual Structured Literacy Symposium this Saturday, September 14, at 9:00am Mountain Time. The event is being organized in a historic collaboration between seven branches of the International Dyslexia Association. The purpose is to reach everyone in our expansive Western Region, covering Arizona, Utah, Rocky Mountains (Colorado & Wyoming), Southwest (New Mexico & El Paso), Austin, Houston, and Dallas (including Oklahoma). But it doesn't end there - The Western Region invites people nationwide to participate, so please help spread the word. We have many rural areas where educators don't always have access to such high-quality presentations. 

If you are wondering about the meaning of terms like "Science of Reading" and "Structured Literacy," come on Saturday and find out more.

The Why, Who, What, and How of a Structured Literacy Approach (Barbara Wilson)

EVENT DETAILS

·   Date: Saturday, September 14th

·  Time:  9 AM MST, 10AM CT, 11AM EST 

·   Duration: 90 minutes + 15 minutes Q&A

·   Platform: Zoom Meetings   

·  Admission: Free to attend; registration is required 

·  ➡️ REGISTER HERE: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtc--qrjgpGdYUN8DR1jfkjp0OfRPM9mI_#/registration

 

The Gods and Gifts Activity Book is Available Now

My Gods and Gifts Activity Book is available now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You may also order it from your favorite local bookstore. Your school librarian can find it at Ingram. The Activity Book accompanies my decodable chapter book Gods and Gifts: Three Greek Myths Retold.

The 218-page resource was created to provide all the tools an educator needs for a complete structured literacy lesson and additional written applications for the general education classroom. In addition, there are 16 different activities SLPs can use to work on the sounds for R, S, L. 

Here's what people are saying: 

"This is the most comprehensive set of literacy activities I have seen in one book!”  - Dannah Fritz Co-Owner of Jacksonville Tutoring Specialists, Advanced Certified in Barton & Accredited IEW Instructor

“As an SLP, I highly recommend Dean's HOT ROD Activity Books to my colleagues! I love these books because they simultaneously target articulation, oral language, and literacy skills. It's a comprehensive tool that not only improves speech but also supports overall language development! This is a must-have for any SLP!” - Ellen Cieszkiewicz Rigg, M.A. CCC-SLP, A/OGA

What a powerful tool for anyone supporting learners! The Comprehension section includes practical strategies to assist learners as they explore texts. Students’ comprehension will be supported by using the PAGES framework to help them think critically about the text they’re reading. This chapter also gives learners signal words and practice paragraphs to help determine what type of text they’re reading. Dean’s story “Bats and Their Amazing Skills” is followed by comprehension questions and the opportunity to cite and explain an answer using the RACE framework. Students' skills and confidence will grow if they utilize these strategies.”    -Jolene Gutierrez, M.L.S., author of Too Much! An Overwhelming Day, teacher/librarian at Denver Academy, a school for neurodivergent learners including those with dyslexia.

The Activity Book includes 50+ Activities to work on the following skills: 

*DECODING – Work on reading short vowel words and closed syllables at the word and sentence level. Includes initial and final consonant blends

*ARTICULATION: Explore /s/ and /r/ sounds, initial blends for both, and final blends including /s/.

*PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS:  Work on sound and syllable deletion. Develop awareness of rhyme, alliteration, rhythm, and stress.

*COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY: Sort words by phonological and semantic features.

*MORPHOLOGY: Explore Prefix PRO, Suffixes -S, -NESS, -LESS, -FUL, -EN. 

*STRUCTURED WORD INQUIRY: Use a Matrix to build Word Sums for the base elements REST, HELP, SPECT

*ETYMOLOGY:  Use etymology and character names (Prometheus, Epimetheus, Pandora) to generate words for PRO, EPI, and PAN.

*VOCABULARY: Explore words before, during, and after reading. Build strategies for using context to derive word meaning. Create vocabulary foldables. Play games with definitions and multiple-meaning words.

*SENTENCE AWARENESS & CONSTRUCTION: Combine short sentences using coordinating conjunctions. Answer WH- questions to build sentences. Determine if sentences are complete or incomplete. Decide if a subject or predicate is missing. Determine if multiple-meaning words function within a sentence as nouns, verbs, or adjectives.

*PLOT STRUCTURE: Use the storyboard for story retells and summaries.

*GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS: Support writing at all levels. Create compare/contrast essays.

*COMPREHENSION:  Use the PAGES Strategy. Use signal words to determine text type. Practice answering questions using the RACE format.

*CREATE: Brainstorm funny titles for Zeus' hobby books. Create a list poem to go inside Pandora’s Lunch Box

 

Link to a Preview of my Boom Cards Connect 4 Game to practice words with short vowel sounds- HERE. 

Sign up for my newsletter HERE and receive a free PDF copy of my first decodable book, No Gift for Man, in full color. It is also the first chapter of my black and white decodable book for older kids - Gods and Gifts: Three Greek Myths Retold. Don't miss any of the fun-filled activities I will be sharing in celebration of my new books along with free activities for A Year of AWE: Authentic Writing Experiences.