COR The Components of Reading - Part 6 - Sentence Structure

We are continuing our series on COR Instruction by exploring sentence structure. I first used the icons below in my book, Story Frames for Teaching Literacy: Enhancing Student Learning through the Power of Storytelling, to help students build complex sentences through asking a series of WH-Questions. This month, I'm using these same questions for a fun fill-in-the-blank story starter.

The theme is Scary Stories. I have included a mini word matrix for the base element SPECT (as in specter). There is also 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 Activity Book. It is based on my decodable chapter book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles. They may be found on Amazon or at my online STORE. The Activity Book contains 15 different activities for sentence construction.

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.

Authentic Writing Experience for November - Writing Book Reviews

The November Authentic Writing Experience is all about book reviews. Creating book reviews is a great way to work on summary and essay writing, but reviews are so much more than just an old-fashioned book report. They have a real-life purpose. A book review is designed to share impressions and opinions of books with our friends and to get suggestions of books we might like from them. Many adults join book clubs to talk about books. Some prefer movies and enjoy writing reviews for films on sites like Rotten Tomatoes. They also get ideas for movies they might enjoy by reading other people's reviews.

When I worked with high school students on the autism spectrum, we had an after-school movie club. We watched movies, talked about movies, and students wrote movie reviews. Then they filmed each other, giving Siskel and Ebert-style film reviews. The Twilight movie came out around that time, and they even wrote a spoof of the story, acted it out, and filmed it.

While researching my new Edgar Allan Poe book, The Raven Remix, I was surprised to discover that in addition to being a famous poet and short story writer, Poe was also a magazine editor and literary critic. Poe was the first writer to try to make a living solely by his literary efforts, but it was very hard. He lived much of his life in poverty. He received nine dollars for his poem "The Raven" which was not much money even in his time. 

To help support himself and his family, Poe wrote hundreds of essays, book reviews, and articles that were published in newspapers and magazines. He proposed setting specific standards to judge the merits of literary works. Whenever he critiqued a particular work, he made a detailed technical analysis and often pointed out grammar errors and illogical reasoning. The general public loved his reviews, which were often witty and clever, but the authors he critiqued were not always fans, especially when his remarks were unfavorable. Some of the contemporary authors he reviewed were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and James Fenimore Cooper.

I don't suggest harshly criticizing your peers, as Poe often did. He lost a lot of friends that way, but writing a book review can be helpful to others who may be interested in reading similar genres. 

Here are some tips to share with young people for writing book reviews:
 
1. Write a one-paragraph summary of the story, but don't give away the ending. Include the title of the book and the author.
2. Write one paragraph describing what you liked or disliked about the book and why others may or may not want to read it. Compare it to similar books that people may know about.
3. Write a conclusion and give the book a 1-5 star rating.

My new decodable book The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles is now available on Ingram, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can also order it from your favorite local bookstore.

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.

Happy Halloween - Cause of Death Theory #4 - MURDER

Did someone want Poe dead?

Around the time of Poe's death, there were rumors that robbers had beaten him and taken his possessions, which is why he was wearing strange clothing, but what if he was beaten by someone who knew him?  Poe was engaged to marry Elmira Shelton, his high school sweetheart. When they were young, Elmira's father hid Poe's letters from her when Poe went away to college. Elmira ended up marrying another man, but when her husband died, and Poe's wife Virginia died, the two rekindled their romance.  Is it possible that someone else in the family also disapproved of the relationship? Perhaps Elmira's brothers? 

John Evangelist Walsh wrote an intriguing book called Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe. He analyzed the last few weeks of Poe's life and came to the conclusion that Poe was killed by someone he knew. Was his death intentional, or was someone just trying to frighten him and they went too far? 

We may never know the real cause of Poe's death, but if you read my new book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles, you will get to explore several theories about how he died. To review this month's blog posts on the subject, check out the links below.

Theory #1 came about when a strange mass was found in Poe's skull when his body was exhumed and moved to a better gravesite. 

Theory #2 was discussed in the Maryland Medical Journal.

Theory #3 can be traced back to a strange type of voter fraud prevalent in the 1800s.

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Happy Book Birthday and Another Cause of Death - Theory 2 - Rabies

Happy Book Birthday to my new decodable book for grades 5-9 - The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles which became available on October 15 on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can also order it at bookshop.org and credit your favorite local bookstore. To read more about the book and to preview it on Net Galley, see last week's blog post entitled - The Raven Remix - Just In Time for Halloween and Dyslexia Awareness Month. If you read the book, please leave a review at any of those sites.

In celebration, I'm sharing excerpts from the background section. That part is not decodable. It's meant to be read to struggling students to provide background knowledge, or it can be shared with a general education classroom of middle school students who can read it independently. 

Poe's mysterious death is a mystery that has never been solved, but many fascinating theories have developed over the years. In 1996, a doctor named R. Michael Benitez was given a medical puzzle to solve during a clinical pathological conference. He was provided a patient’s name  - E.P., and a list of symptoms, which included lethargy, confusion, delirium, hallucinations, rapid erratic pulse rate, and shallow breathing, with death resulting within four days after admission to the hospital. Dr. Benitez concluded that the patient died of rabies.

 
The doctor was surprised to discover that the patient described to him was none other than the famous Edgar Allan Poe. Because he did not know the identity of the subject before giving his diagnosis, he was not influenced by any of the previous theories surrounding Poe’s death. However, without DNA evidence, his theory is impossible to prove. Poe also did not suffer from hydrophobia or fear of water, usually associated with rabies. Even so, the Maryland Medical Journal thought Dr. Benitiz’s solution was valid enough to publish in their September 1996 issue.

The hospital where Poe died diagnosed him as having encephalitis, but the specific cause was not given. One type of viral encephalitis that was common at the time Poe died was rabies. If a human is bitten by a mammal (dog, cat, bat) carrying the disease, they can develop rabies encephalitis. This condition leads to many of the symptoms Poe experienced. Read last week's blogpost and Theory #1 - Brain Tumor.

To find out more about the mysterious death of Poe, read my new book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles. 

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. 

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. 

Poe's Irish Heritage

I'm celebrating March, shamrocks, and all things Irish with a bit of Edgar Allan Poe trivia and information about Poe's Irish Heritage. Although his father's family was Scottish, his grandfather, David Poe, was born in Ireland. David Poe left Ireland for America around 1750 with his parents and settled in Baltimore. David Poe fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.  His son, David Poe Jr., Edgar's father, was planning to be a lawyer but pursued acting instead.

Edgar's mother, Eliza, came from England with her mother who was an actress. She joined a traveling acting troupe and Eliza soon began to perform with them. From the young age of nine, Eliza was quite accomplished on stage and had a beautiful singing voice. Her mother died during the yellow fever epidemic of 1798 leaving her an orphan around the age of 11. She stayed with the acting troupe and continued performing with them, and they became her family. She married David Poe Jr. and they had three children. Edgar was born in the theater district in Boston near Carver Street. Although the street no longer exists, the city of Boston has left up the street sign to commemorate the place of Poe's birth. 

I was able to visit Carver Street, or what's left of it, while I was in Boston this past November for the ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing) Conference. Just around the corner is a lovely statue entitled "Poe Returning to Boston." If you look closely, you can see all sorts of interesting things coming out of Poe's satchel including manuscripts, a raven, and a tell-tale heart. Across the street sits a cemetery.

Although the theater critics loved Poe's mother, Eliza, they were unkind to her husband and often critical of his performances. He left the family when Edgar was two years old. Just before Edgar turned three, his mother died of tuberculosis, and her three children went to live with three separate families. The Allan family took in Edgar but never formally adopted him. 

My new book, The Raven Remix: A Mash-Up of Poe Titles will be available in September. Watch for more Poe trivia coming soon. Join my newsletter HERE to keep up with book news and free activities like last week's Boxty Recipe for Irish Potato Pancakes in my post about Sharing Recipes to Celebrate Culture.