Dear 8th Grade Families,

 

Our ELA class is ready to begin reading StudySync, Unit 1. The overarching theme of this unit is Everyone Loves a Mystery. Students will be asked to engage in thinking, listening, speaking, reading and writing about the following: But what attracts us to mystery and suspense? We may have wondered what keeps us from closing the book or changing the channel when confronted with something scary, or compels us to experience in stories the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid. Why do we do it? We are providing you with the summaries of the unit  selections and encourage you to read them using the digital platform by logging into your child’s student account to access the texts. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the unit texts, please contact the classroom teacher or school administrator. 

 

The first text in the unit is The Tell-Tale Heart, in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the central mystery about the main character concerns his sanity in the midst of a terrible murder confession. Will he give himself away, or get away with murder?

 

Monster by Walter Dean Myers, this novel excerpt consists mainly of a screenplay as imagined by the main character. The opening text is a prologue in the form of a journal entry by the character. With the harsh realism of “Monster,” Walter Dean Myers draws readers into the tense story of a teenage boy on trial for murder. Did he commit the crime? What will the verdict be? And is the question of his guilt or innocence even relevant in a criminal justice system that is not always just? 

 

In Let ‘Em Play God by Alfred Hitchcock – Anyone who creates thrillers or mysteries knows that it’s crucial to keep the reader or the audience guessing. How does a filmmaker keep an audience’s interest in movie after movie? In this essay, the “master of suspense,” Alfred Hitchcock, shares his secret for creating unforgettable suspense films.

 

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar, this poem was written during the post-Reconstruction era in the United States, when African Americans faced Jim Crow laws, segregation, discrimination, and harsh economic realities.

 

The excerpt from Ten Days in a Mad-House (Chapter 4) by Nellie Bly, on an assignment for her paper in 1887, the narrator goes undercover to get inside an insane asylum, or mad-house, to report on what she finds inside. 

 

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, this story describes a fictional small town in the contemporary United States, which observes an annual rite known as “the lottery”, in which a member of the community is selected by chance. The shocking consequence of being selected in the lottery is revealed only at the end.

 

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell, the original novel by Neil Gaiman was turned into a graphic novel about an infant who falls into the care of a graveyard community of ghosts. Will these supernatural caretakers live up to the challenge?

The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem by Rudolph Fisher, in an excerpt from a novel, The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem, Dr. Archer is called upon to examine the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of a local conjure-man, or fortune teller. 

 

The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs, in this classic story of suspense, “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, in the story, three wishes are granted to the owner of The Monkey’s Paw, but the wishes come with an enormous price for interfering with fate; we see the White family drawn to the mystery of the monkey’s paw. 

 

Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science, by W.W. Jacobs, When a man amazingly survives a freak accident, he and his brain become a world famous mystery, especially to psychologists, medical researchers, and doctors.

 

Teachers may also choose to have students read the full text of the following titles:

  • Monster by Walter Dean Meyers – Sixteen-year-old Harlem native Steve Harmon is on trial for first-degree murder. He’s also writing a screenplay about his life turned upside-down. Told through Harmon’s writings, Monster is a courtroom drama that investigates the roles race, class, and personal assumptions play in the justice system. Will Steve’s case be just another “motions case”—the way his guards refer to cases that are all but certain to end in a guilty verdict? Or will Steve be able to convince the jury—as well as his attorney, his father, and his readers—that he’s innocent? As students read Monster, we will ask them to think about the criminal justice system. How does having a criminal record shape a young person’s life? How do factors like race and class influence outcomes? Beyond this, encourage students to think about the novel’s shifting narrative styles. How does Steve use storytelling as a tool for literal and/or figurative escape?

 

  • Great Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe which includes a talking raven pays a distraught man a late-night visit… A razor-sharp pendulum swings back and forth over a prisoner bound hand and foot… An uninvited guest at a masquerade ball has a deadly surprise… Edgar Allan Poe’s timeless stories and poems are filled with indelible images of the macabre that form the very foundations of mystery and horror. Poe’s Great Tales and Poems features many of the author’s most beloved works, including “The Raven,” “The Bells,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and many more. As students read these works, we will encourage them to think about the themes and stylistic elements within. What do they suggest about Poe’s fascinations and fears? How have they influenced their respective genres? Which contemporary writers and filmmakers are most directly influenced by Poe’s work?

 

  • Ten Days in a Mad House by Nellie Bly – Ten Days in a Mad House is a classic example of muckraking – a reporter seeking out a government or corporate wrongdoing, or delving into a societal ill, then exposing it in the hopes of creating public pressure for its correction. To report on deplorable conditions in asylums, author Nellie Bly convinced a judge that she was insane and was subsequently committed to Blackwell’s Island, an asylum in New York City. The ill-treatment Bly witnessed there ranged from starvation and extreme cold to outright physical abuse and torture. As students read Ten Days in a Mad-House, we will ask them to think about how we treat the most vulnerable among us. How are abuses in institutions-schools, hospitals, the military, police and government-kept in check? How can structures of an institution protect the acts of individuals who wield their power in bad faith? How has work like Bly’s influenced today’s investigative reporting?