Edgar Allan Poe Escape Room: An Escape Room for Close Reading and Literary Terms

**UPDATED 10/19/2020** This escape room now includes an entirely virtual option! All you have to do is assign the Google Form and then watch your students engage in awesome escape room experience!

This resource is a sequential (clues lead in to each other) escape room/breakout room that involves logic puzzles, cipher puzzles, and connection challenges all related to the works Edgar Allan Poe. It’s a great way to engage students in critical thinking and cooperative learning.

The escape room is based on a fun scenario that puts students on a mission to escape a haunted house before it crumbles to the ground (like “The Fall of the House of Usher”). There are five tasks in all related to important ELA skills: close reading, contextual vocabulary, literary terms, stimulus-based multiple choice practice, and poetic form. Your students will have a blast making connections and working together while showing what they know about reading and analyzing literature by Edgar Allan Poe.

This escape room will send students around your classroom to specific decor items (a skull, masque, and raven). If you don't have these items, don't worry! I've included printable decor that you can spread throughout your classroom to correspond to the clues.

Here is what's included:

• Clue 1: Students will read the scenario letter. Then, they will use their contextual vocabulary skills to match words in context to their definitions. The answer will lead them to the next clue.
• Clue 2: Students will match quotations from famous Poe works to their titles. Students may not have read all of these works, but they can use the context clues in the quotations and the titles to match them.
• Clue 3: Students will answer stimulus-based multiple-choice questions from a passage from "The Raven."
• Clue 4: Students will read a passage from "The Masque of the Red Death" and complete a crossword puzzle relating to literary terms used in the passage.
• Clue 5: Students will read "Anabel Lee" and identify its poetic form.
• Certificate of Achievement
• Poe posters that can be used as clues or just as fun decor.
• Detailed Set Up Instructions
• Teacher's Answer Key

BONUS: I've included two sets of puzzles/clues: one set that includes directions and one that doesn't. This way, you can choose the level of difficulty that best suits your students needs!

You may have seen pictures of this escape room in action from the Keeping the Wonder Workshop! Search the hashtag #keepingthewonderworkshop on Instagram for more pictures from the event!

Check out the preview!

Please note: Due to the nature of the sequential escape room and the terms of use related to the unique (and hauntingly beautiful) clip art and fonts used in this resource, this escape room is NOT editable.