Lake Howell High School

Summer Reading Activity Packet English I Standard

DIRECTIONS: Read each article and complete the corresponding activities. Be sure to read

the directions carefully and complete the activities according to the directions. Your answers should show that you have a complete understanding of the

material presented in the articles.

Poe's Life

Who is Edgar Allan Poe? The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen,

premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary

classics as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe

is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business. By the age of thirteen, Poe had compiled enough poetry to publish a book, but his headmaster advised Allan against allowing this.

In 1826 Poe left Richmond to attend the University of Virginia, where he excelled in his classes while accumulating considerable debt. The miserly Allan had sent Poe to college with less than a third of the money he needed, and Poe soon took up gambling to raise money to pay his expenses. By the end of his first term Poe was so desperately poor that he burned his furniture to keep warm.

Humiliated by his poverty and furious with Allan for not providing enough funds in the first place, Poe returned to Richmond and visited the home of his fiancée Elmira Royster, only to discover that she had become engaged to another man in Poe’s absence. The heartbroken Poe’s last few months in the Allan

PART I Directions: Read the following article about the life of Edgar Allan Poe and answer the questions at the end of the article.

mansion were punctuated with increasing hostility towards Allan until Poe finally stormed out of the home in a quixotic quest to become a great poet and to find adventure. He accomplished the first objective by publishing his first book Tamerlane when he was only eighteen, and to achieve the second

goal he enlisted in the United States Army. Two years later he heard that Frances Allan, the only mother he had ever known, was dying of tuberculosis and wanted to see him before she died. By the time Poe returned to Richmond she had already been buried. Poe and Allan briefly reconciled, and Allan helped Poe gain an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Before going to West Point, Poe published another volume of poetry. While there, Poe was offended to hear that Allan had remarried without telling him or even inviting him to the ceremony. Poe wrote to Allan detailing all the wrongs Allan had committed against him and threatened to get himself expelled from the academy. After only eight months at West Point Poe was thrown out, but he soon published yet another book.

Broke and alone, Poe turned to Baltimore, his late father’s home, and called upon relatives in the city. One

of Poe’s cousins robbed him in the night, but another relative, Poe’s aunt Maria Clemm, became a new mother to him and welcomed him into her home. Clemm’s daughter Virginia first acted as a courier to carry letters to Poe’s lady loves but soon became the object of his desire.

While Poe was in Baltimore, Allan died, leaving Poe out of his will, which did, however, provide for an illegitimate child Allan had never seen. By then Poe was living in poverty but had started publishing his short stories, one of which won a contest sponsored by the Saturday Visiter. The connections Poe established through the contest allowed him to publish more stories and to eventually gain an editorial position at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. It was at this magazine that Poe finally found his life’s work as a magazine writer.

Within a year Poe helped make the Messenger the most popular magazine in the south with his sensational stories as well as with his scathing book reviews. Poe soon developed a reputation as a fearless critic who not only attacked an author’s work but also insulted the author and the northern literary establishment. Poe targeted some of the most famous writers in the country. One of his victims was the anthologist and editor Rufus Griswold.

At the age of twenty-seven, Poe brought Maria and Virginia Clemm to Richmond and married his Virginia, who was not yet fourteen. The marriage proved a happy one, and the family is said to have enjoyed singing together at night. Virginia

expressed her devotion to her husband in a Valentine poem now in the collection of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and Poe celebrated the joys of married life in his poem “Eulalie.”

Dissatisfied with his low pay and lack of editorial control at the Messenger, Poe moved to New York City. In the wake of the financial crisis known as the “Panic of 1837,” Poe struggled to find magazine work and wrote his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

After a year in New York, Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838 and wrote for a number of different magazines. He served as editor of Burton’s and then Graham’s magazines while continuing to sell articles

to Alexander’s Weekly Messenger and other journals. In spite of his growing fame, Poe was still barely able to make a living. For the publication of his first book of short stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, he was only paid with twenty-five free copies of his book. He would soon become a champion

for the cause of higher wages for writers as well as for an international copyright law. To change the face of the magazine industry, he proposed starting his own journal, but he failed to find the necessary funding.

In the face of poverty Poe was still able to find solace at home with his wife and mother-in-law, but tragedy struck in 1842 when Poe’s wife contracted tuberculosis, the disease that had already claimed Poe’s mother, brother, and foster mother.

Always in search of better opportunities, Poe moved to New York again in 1844 and introduced himself to the city by perpetrating a hoax. His “news story” of a balloon trip across the ocean caused a sensation, and the public rushed to read everything about it—until Poe revealed that he had fooled them all.

The January 1845 publication of “The Raven” made Poe a household name. He was now famous enough to

draw large crowds to his lectures, and he was beginning to demand better pay for his work. He published two books that year, and briefly lived his dream of running his own magazine when he bought out the owners of the Broadway Journal. The failure of the venture, his wife’s deteriorating health, and rumors spreading about Poe’s relationship with a married woman, drove him out of the city in 1846. At this time he moved to a tiny cottage in the country. It was there, in the winter of 1847 that Virginia died at the age of twenty-four. Poe was devastated, and was unable to write for months. His critics assumed he would soon be dead. They were right. Poe only lived another two years and spent much of that time traveling from one city to the next giving lectures and finding backers for his latest proposed magazine project to be called The Stylus.

While on lecture tour in Lowell, Massachusetts, Poe met and befriended Nancy Richmond. His idealized and platonic love of her inspired some of his greatest poetry, including “For Annie.” Since she remained married and unattainable, Poe attempted to marry the poetess Sarah Helen Whitman in Providence, but the engagement lasted only about one month. In Richmond he found his first fiancée Elmira Royster Shelton was now a widow, so began to court her again. Before he left Richmond on a trip to Philadelphia he considered himself engaged to her, and her letters from the time imply that she felt the same way. On the way to Philadelphia, Poe stopped in Baltimore and disappeared for five days.

He was found in the bar room of a public house that was being used as a polling place for an election. The magazine editor Joseph Snodgrass sent Poe to Washington College Hospital, where Poe spent the last days of his life far from home and surrounded by strangers. Neither Poe’s mother-in-law nor his fiancée knew what had become of him until they read about it in the newspapers. Poe died on October 7, 1849 at the age of forty. The exact cause of Poe’s death remains a mystery.

Days after Poe’s death, his literary rival Rufus Griswold wrote a libelous obituary of the author in a misguided attempt at revenge for some of the offensive things Poe had said and

written about him. Griswold followed the obituary with a memoir in which he portrayed Poe as a drunken, womanizing madman with no morals and no friends. Griswold’s attacks were meant to cause the public to dismiss Poe and his works, but the biography had exactly the opposite effect and instead drove the sales of Poe’s books higher than they had ever been during the author’s lifetime. Griswold’s distorted image of Poe created the Poe legend that lives to this day while Griswold is only remembered (if at all) as Poe’s first biographer.

Response Questions: Answer the following questions by restating the question and writing in complete sentences. All answers can be found in the article above.

1. What type of literature is Poe primarily known for writing?

2. How did Poe get the reputation of being a “morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of

moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles?”

3. Who was Poe’s hero as a child?

4. Why did Poe begin gambling?

5. After moving to Baltimore, what career did Poe begin to do?

6. How did the publication of “The Raven” change Poe’s life?

7. What is mysterious about Poe’s death?

8. How did Rufus Griswold’s biography of Poe change the public’s perception of Poe?

Can you be the one to finally solve the mystery of Poe’s death? Poe died under mysterious

circumstances at the age of forty and the exact cause of his death remains unknown. So far there are nearly thirty published theories. Read the clues below then use the information you learn to write

your own theory of Poe’s death.

Death Clues Poe had a pre-existing condition, possibly a brain tumor. His heartbeat was irregular, and he could not consume alcohol without “producing insanity.” “I made my diagnosis and went to Dr. Mott with it. I told him that at best when he was well Mr. Poe’s heart beat only ten regular beats after which it suspended or intermitted (as Doctors say). I decided that in his best health, he had leasion [sic] on one side of the brain, and as he could not bear stimulants or tonics, without producing insanity, I did not feel much hope, that he could be raised up from a brain fever, brought on by extreme suffering of mind and body…sedatives even had to be administered with caution.” – Marie Louise Shew (Poe’s friend and nurse), Letter to John Henry Ingram (Poe’s biographer), January 23, 1875

Poe expected to die before he returned from his trip to Richmond. “Mr. Poe left his home, in Westchester County, in this state, early in the summer on a visit to the South, and we were told at the time that his mother-in-law Mrs. Clemm, who was his sole companion, had no expectations of ever seeing him return. He arranged all his papers so that they could be used without difficulty in case of his death, and told her that if he never came back she would find everything left in order. But there was no cause to apprehend that the termination of his career was close at hand. He went to Richmond where he delivered a series of lectures and was well received by his old friends; he renewed his attachment to a wealthy widow in that city, which he had known before his or her marriage, and was on his way home to make arrangements for his marriage to her, when he had a relapse of his besetting infirmities in Baltimore, and died miserably.” – Holden’s Dollar Magazine, December 1849

PART II Directions: Read the following article about the mystery surrounding the death of Edgar Allan Poe and use the information to create your own theory as to how Poe died.

Solve the Mystery of Poe’s Death

Poe contracted cholera weeks before arriving in Richmond and had a manic episode. Once again, Poe expected to die before the conclusion of his trip. “I have been so ill--have had the cholera, or spasms quiet as bad, and can now hardly hold the pen. . . The very instant you get this, come to me. The joy of seeing you will almost compensate for our sorrows. We can but die together. It is no use to reason with me now; I must die. I have no desire to live since I have done "Eureka." I could accomplish nothing more. For your sake it would be sweet to live, but we must die together. You have been all in all to me, darling, ever beloved mother, and dearest, truest friend…I was never really insane, except on occasions where my heart was touched. . . I have been taken to prison once since I came here for spreeing drunk; but then I was not. It was about Virginia.” – Edgar Allan Poe, Letter to his mother-in-law Maria Clemm, June 7, 1849

Poe experienced hallucinations and was “totally deranged” for ten days shortly before his arrival in Richmond.” “You will see at once, by the handwriting of this letter, that I am better--much better in health and spirits. Oh, if you only knew how your dear letter comforted me! It acted like magic. Most of my suffering arose from that terrible idea which I could not get rid of--the idea that you were dead. For more than ten days I was totally deranged, although I was not drinking one drop; and during this interval I imagined the most horrible calamities.... All was hallucination, arising from an attack which I had never before experienced--an attack of mania-a-potu. May Heaven grant that it prove a warning to me for the rest of my days. If so, I shall not regret even the horrible unspeakable torments I have endured.” – Edgar Allan Poe, Letter to Maria Clemm, July 19, 1849

Poe was pale and trembling. His condition was serious enough that two doctors thought he was in “imminent danger” and that another “attack” would kill him. “On the day following he made his appearance among us, but so pale, so tremulous and apparently subdued as to convince me that he had been seriously ill. On this occasion he had been at his rooms at the 'Old Swan' where he was carefully tended by Mrs. Mackenzie's family, but on a second and more serious relapse he was taken by Dr. Mackenzie and Dr. Gibbon Carter to Duncan's Lodge, where during some days his life was in imminent danger. Assiduous attention saved him, but it was the opinion of the physicians that another such attack would prove fatal. This they told him, warning him seriously of the danger. His reply was that if people would not tempt him, he would not fall.” – Susan Archer Talley (a friend of Poe’s sister), “The Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe,” Scribner's Monthly, XV, March 1878

On his last night in Richmond he was pale and had a fever. “He came to my house on the evening of the 26th Sept. to take leave of me — He was very sad, and complained of being quite sick; I felt his pulse, and found he had considerable fever, and did not think it probable that he would be able to start the next morning, (Thursday) as he anticipated — I felt so wretched about him all of that night, that I went up early the next morning to enquire after him, when, much to my regret, he had left in the boat for Baltimore.” – Elmira Royster Shelton (Poe’s fiancée), Letter to Maria Clemm, October 11,1849

When Poe left Richmond, he took the wrong walking stick and forgot his luggage.

“On this evening he sat for some time talking, while playing with a handsome Malacca sword-cane recently presented to me by a friend, and then, abruptly rising, said, ‘I think I will step over to Saddler’s (a popular restaurant in the neighborhood) for a few moments,’ and so left without any further word, having my cane still in his hand. From this manner of departure I inferred that he expected to return shortly, but did not see him again, and was surprised to learn next day that he had left for Baltimore by the early morning boat. I then called on Saddler, who informed me that Poe had left his house at exactly twelve that night, starting for the Baltimore boat in company with several companions whom he had met at Saddler’s, and giving as a reason therefore the lateness of the hour and the fact that the boat was to leave at four o’clock. According to Saddler he was in good spirits and sober, though it is certain that he had been drinking and that he seemed oblivious of his baggage, which had been left in his room at the Swan Tavern. These effects were after his death forwarded by one of Mrs. Mackenzie’s sons to Mrs. Clemm in New York, and through the same source I received my cane, which Poe in his absent-mindedness had taken away with him.” – Dr. John Carter (Poe’s friend), “Edgar Poe’s Last Night in Richmond.” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, November 1902

Poe’s whereabouts and activities after leaving Richmond are unknown—even by his family. “At what time he arrived in this city, where he spent the time he was here, or under what circumstances, I have been unable to ascertain. It appears that, on Wednesday, he was seen and recognized at one of the places of election in old town, and that his condition was such as to render it necessary to send him to the college, where he was tenderly nursed until the time of his death. As soon as I heard that he was at the college, I went over, but his physicians did not think it advisable that I should see him, as he was very excitable—The next day I called and sent him changes of linen &c. And was gratified to learn that he was much better, & I was never so much shocked, in my life, as when, on Sunday morning, notice was sent to me that he was dead…Mr. Herring and myself have sought, in vain, for the trunk and clothes of Edgar. There is reason to believe that he was robbed of them, whilst in such a condition as to render him insensible of his loss…” – Neilson Poe (Edgar Poe’s cousin), Letter to Maria Clemm, October 10, 1849

Poe appears “in great distress” in a Baltimore polling place. “There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan’s 4th ward polls, who goes by the cognomen Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, and I assure you, he is in need of immediate assistance.” – Joseph W. Walker to Joseph Snodgrass, October 3, 1849

Poe is found in the bar-room of the public house, dressed in clothes so unlike his own that a friend barely recognized him. Poe is unable to speak but mutters incoherently. Unable to walk, he is carried out of the building. “When I entered the bar-room of the house, I instantly recognized the face of one whom I had often seen and knew well, although it wore an aspect of vacant stupidity which made me shudder…But perhaps I would not have so readily recognized him had I not been notified of his apparel. His hat — or rather the hat of somebody else, for he had evidently been robbed of his clothing, or cheated in exchange — was a cheap palm leaf one, without a band, and soiled; his coat, of commonest alpaca, and evidently “second hand”; and his pants of gray-mixed cassimere, dingy and badly fitting. He wore neither vest nor neckcloth, if I remember aright, while his shirt was badly crumpled and soiled. He was so utterly stupefied with

liquor that I thought it best not to seek recognition or conversation…So insensible was he, that we had to carry him to the carriage as if a corpse. The muscles of articulation seemed paralyzed to speechlessness, and mere incoherent mutterings were all that were heard.” – Joseph Snodgrass, "The Facts of Poe’s Death and Burial,” Beadle's Monthly, March 1867

Poe arrives at the hospital unconscious and remains in that condition from 5:00 pm until 3:00 am. When he awakens, he trembles and sweats profusely until the following day. This is followed by “constant talking” with “imaginary objects.” He is unable to remember what has happened to him, where he has been, or what has become of his luggage. He thinks his wife is waiting for him in Richmond, but he was not married at the time. During another period of violent delirium, he calls the name “Reynolds” repeatedly before he calms down and dies. “Presuming you are already aware of the malady of which Mr. Poe died, I need only state concisely the particulars of his circumstances from his entrance until his decease — When brought to the Hospital he was unconscious of his condition — who brought him or with whom he had been associating. He remained in this condition from 5 Ock in the afternoon — the hour of his admission — until 3 next morning… To this state succeeded tremor of the limbs, and at first a busy, but not violent or active delirium — constant talking — and vacant converse with spectral and imaginary objects on the walls. His face was pale and his whole person drenched in perspiration — We were unable to induce tranquility before the second day after his admission…I was summoned to his bedside so soon as consciousness supervenes, and questioned him in reference to his family — place of residence — relatives &c. But his answers were incoherent & unsatisfactory. He told me, however, he had a wife in Richmond (which, I have since learned was not the fact) that he did not know when he left that city or what had become of his trunk of clothing. Wishing to rally and sustain his now fast sinking hopes I told him I hoped, that in a few days he would be able to enjoy the society of his friends here, and I would be most happy to contribute in every possible way to his ease & comfort. At this he broke out with much energy, and said the best thing his best friend could do would be to blow out his brains with a pistol — that when he beheld his degradation he was ready to “sink in the earth &c.” Shortly after giving expression to these words Mr. Poe seemed to dose & I left him for a short time. When I returned I found him in a violent delirium, resisting the efforts of two nurses to keep him in bed. This state continued until Saturday evening (he was admitted on Wednesday) when he commenced calling for one “Reynolds,” which he did through the night up to three on Sunday morning. At this time a very decided change began to affect him. Having become enfeebled from exertion he became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time, then quietly moving his head he said “Lord help my poor Soul” and expired!” – John Moran (Poe’s attending physician), Letter to Maria Clemm (Poe’s mother-in-law), November 15, 1849

Two days after Poe’s deah, a Baltimore newspaper reports that Poe was suffering from “an attack of mania a potu” or drug- or alcohol-induced hallucinations. “Our Baltimore Correspondence, Baltimore, Oct. 8, 1849. Our city was yesterday shocked with the announcement of the death of Edgar A. Poe, Esq., who arrived in this city about a week since after a successful tour through Virginia, where he delivered a series of able lectures. On last Wednesday, election day, he was found near the Fourth ward polls laboring under an attack of mania a potu, and in a most shocking condition. Being recognized by some of our citizens he was placed in a carriage and conveyed to the Washington Hospital, where every attention has been bestowed on him. He lingered, however, until yesterday morning, when death put a period to his existence. He was a most eccentric genius, with many friends and many foes, but all, I feel satisfied, will view with regret the sad fate of the poet and critic.” – The New York Herald, October 9, 1849

Eight years after Poe’s death, the rumor has spread that Poe was beaten and died as a result of the resultant head trauma. “At the instigation of a woman, who considered herself injured by him, he was cruelly beaten, blow upon blow, by a ruffian who knew of no better mode of avenging supposed injuries. It is well known that a brain fever followed. . . .” – Elizabeth Oakes Smith, "Autobiographic Notes: Edgar Allan Poe," Beadle's Monthly, February 3, 1857

The rumor spreads that Poe died after having been drugged and taken from one polling place to another to be used as a repeat voter. “The story of Poe's death has never been told. Nelson Poe has all the facts, but I am afraid may not be willing to tell them. I do not see why. The actual facts are less discreditable than the common reports published. Poe came to the city in the midst of an election, and that election was the cause of his death. – N.H. Morrison, Letter to Poe’s biographer John Henry Ingram, November 27, 1874 The general belief here is, that Poe was seized by one of these gangs, (his death happening just at election-time; an election for sheriff took place on Oct. 4th), 'cooped,' stupefied with liquor, dragged out and voted, and then turned adrift to die.” – William Hand Browne, Letter to John Henry Ingram, August 24, 1874

Response: Use the information in the articles above to create your own theory for how Poe died. Your response must be at least five sentences in length.

Exploring the Undead: University of Baltimore to Offer English Class on Zombies By Daniel De Vise Friday September 10, 2010 The Washington Post

Is "Night of the Living Dead" a simple zombie film or a subtle antiwar statement? Precisely when did viral pandemic supplant nuclear radiation as the leading cause of zombification? And which sort of animated dead has the greater potential to frighten: shambler or sprinter?

Those questions and others will be laid to rest -- and then grotesquely revivified -- in a new course at the University of Baltimore called "Media Genres: Zombies."

Arnold Blumberg, a lifelong enthusiast of popular culture in general and zombie films in particular, is among the first university professors to devote a semester to study of the reawakened dead. His course, and recent offerings at Columbia College, Rice University and Georgia Tech, share a common interest in the zombie movie as an expression of the zeitgeist.

Zombies have clawed their way to the center of pop culture over the past decade in several big-budget mainstream films.

There was "28 Days Later," a 2002 British production that revived the genre with hip London zombies that were supremely athletic if not, strictly speaking, dead. And "Dawn of the Dead," a 2004 remake of a George A. Romero classic. And "Shaun of the Dead," the definitive satire. And "Zombieland," the slightly less-definitive satire.

And "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," the 2009 literary mash-up that has intermittently outsold the Jane Austen original. And "The Walking Dead," the comic awaiting rebirth as an AMC TV series. And annual zombie walks in fashionable urban centers.

"Right now we're in a massive surge of zombie entertainment," said Blumberg, whose University of Baltimore course is English 333, a number that is -- numerologists, take note -- exactly half of 666.

"On the most basic level, zombies are probably one of the most potent horror icons, one of the closest to us in terms of identification factor, in terms of reflecting ourselves," he said. "The zombie is, simply, us."

Blumberg is curator of Geppi's Entertainment Museum, a shrine to popular culture at Baltimore's Camden Yards. He has degrees from the University of Baltimore and the University of Maryland Baltimore County and co-wrote the book "Zombiemania," a scholarly interest possibly surpassed only by his love for the venerable British science fiction series "Dr. Who". He teaches a UMBC course on the comic book as literature.

PART III Directions: Read the following article and answer the questions at the end of the article.

"Zombiemania" examines 85 zombie movies "to die for." The zombie course covers a mere 16 "classic" titles, from the 1932 Bela Lugosi vehicle "White Zombie" through last year's "Zombieland," the highest-grossing zombie film to date.

"We're looking at how the character of the zombie changes and evolves over the years and how it reflects our culture," Blumberg said.

Even before zombie films became self-aware and artsy, they betrayed the great societal fears of their times. Early zombies obeyed evil voodoo priests and seemed to channel the United States' unresolved issues with race. Nuclear waste spawned Cold War zombies. Romero's gore reminded 1960s viewers of the nightly televised carnage in Vietnam. Millennial zombies -- not actually dead, but hungry and cranky because of viral mutation -- mirror the post-Sept. 11 obsession with pathogen. Blumberg pitched the course just as the university was rolling out a new minor in pop culture.

"We were trying to think of some interesting course to kick it off with," said Jonathan Shorr, director of the School of Communications Design. "And 20 minutes later, Arnold wrote to me and said, 'Are you interested in a zombie course?' "

The class has 45 spaces and is nearly full, with a fairly even distribution of men and women, zombie buffs and neophytes.

"It's not about zombies. It's about how ideas in society express themselves," said Matthew Williams, 35, a junior who is taking the course toward a bachelor's degree in corporate communications.

Collegiate zombie study is not without precedent. Brendan Riley, an English professor at Columbia College in Chicago, introduced a course called "Zombies in Popular Media" in 2007, a bit earlier in the national zombie revival. He thinks his was the first all-zombie course. It is a perennial entry on lists of oddest college classes.

"It was kind of a fight to get it as a recognized course at the school," Riley said. "Because at first, it appears to be kind of a frivolous topic."

Students have responded with stirring interdisciplinary projects. One music major, Riley said, "rewrote the libretto for 'Oklahoma!' to be all about zombies."

Steven Schlozman, a Harvard Medical School professor who has written, only half-jokingly, on the neurophysiology of zombies, regards the awakened dead as perhaps the only cinematic monsters truly deserving of their own collegiate course -- the zombie as a sort of horror-movie everyman, ill-defined and unpredictable. Werewolves and vampires seem positively one-dimensional by comparison.

"There's this kind of raging debate about what are the more appropriate zombies to discuss, the slow-moving zombies, as in 'Night of the Living Dead,' or the fast-moving zombies, as in '28 Days Later' or 'I Am Legend,' " Schlozman said. "How do you define consciousness? How do you define human? There's whole philosophy classes on it."

Response Questions: Answer the following questions by restating the question and writing in complete sentences.

1. Paraphrasing Steven Schlozman, the writer refers to a zombie as a “horror-movie everyman” (paragraph

20). What are the characteristics of an everyman? How then can a zombie be considered an everyman?

2. Why is Professor Blumberg teaching a course on zombies? What is his rationale for such a course?

3. The author begins his essay with three questions. How effective is this strategy? Why?

4. Write a paragraph that states whether you think courses like “Media Genres: Zombies” should be taught in

school. Make sure your point of view is clearly stated and you provide examples and evidence to support

your opinion.

Focusing on Yesterday, Focusing on Today Movie posters are often both beautiful works of art and eye-catching advertisements. They send powerful messages to potential moviegoers. In the past, people saw these posters outside movie theaters, which were often “movie palaces” that could seat up to 5, 000 patrons. Today, posters appear outside multiplexes and on the Web at popular sites such as the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). These posters represent two iconic vampire films. Tod Browning’s Dracula was first released on Valentine’s Day, 1931, and was so wildly popular that it helped secure Universal Studio’s success during the Golden Age of Hollywood. The first installment of Stephenie Meyers’s Twilight saga burst onto the screen in 2008 and created a devoted fan base called Twihards. Both Twilight and Dracula were blockbusters that spawned a host of highly anticipated sequels. These two movie posters were originally printed in color. In the Dracula poster, the couple is surrounded by a golden halo of light that radiates into red. Mina’s hair is blonde, and Dracula’s is brown. The film title appears in bright gold letters against Dracula’s black cape. The Twilight poster is much more muted in tone. Edward wears a dark gray jacket, and his hair is dark brown; Bella is wearing a blue denim jacket, and her hair appears auburn. Their skin is luminous, although his is lighter, and their lips are red. Examine these two posters closely as both artistic photographs carefully crafted advertisements. Even if you have not seen either one of the films, you can infer important information from each visual. Then answer the questions on the next page.

“I Am…Dracula.” “Love Never Dies.”

PART IV Directions: Read the following article and use the information from the pictures to answer the questions at the end of the article.

Response Questions: Answer the following questions by restating the question and writing in complete sentences.

1. Compare the two couples on the posters. Study their expressions, their body language and positions, and their

clothing. Note both similarities and differences. What can you infer about the two relationships as they are

captured at this moment?

2. How does the text relate to the visual component of each poster? Where is the text positioned? How big is it?

How much text is used on each movie poster? What message about the film does the text convey?

3. What is it about each poster that would convince someone to view the film it is advertising? What is the target

audience for each poster (age group, gender ethnicity)?

4. How does each movie poster reflect the time period in which the film it advertises was produced? What details

reveal the different times? Which poster “speaks” to you in a more powerful manner? Why?