For my final project I sought inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe. My students are currently reading Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher." In wonderful Poe fashion, "The Fall of the House of Usher" has a dark and dreary setting with an ancient family whose line will end when Roderick and his sister Madeline die. The Usher house, much like the Usher family, is crumbling. Using setting, character, plot, and diction, Poe creates a feeling within the story and the reader of irrational fear, a nameless, faceless, timeless fear. When writing Poe would began with an emotion, a single effect, that he wished to create; every aspect of the story seeks to create, enhance, and reinforce this effect.
Needless to say imitating Poe is a stretch, but adding technology created moments of a single emotional effect I am unable to express publicly. I was disappointed with my showing on the last project using Open Office Impress (a bit like PowerPoint); the overall effect seemed a bit childish and lacked complexity and smoothness. A glutton for punishment, I went back to Open Office Impress to try again with the final project. I was able to cut and paste a quote from an essay written by Poe describing his writing process to a slide for a second presentation and link it to the main presentation. I used sound and music to help create my single effect of terror. I was also able to include a very cool and disturbing 'gif.' The images throughout the presentation add to the feelings and thoughts that often come when you are home alone and your imagination doesn't know when to stop. In most of the slides there is a crack (black line) that widens as the story unfolds and suggests the character's growing sense of terror.
Final Project: With Poe's Help
