Paired Texts > The Raven

by Edgar Allan Poe 1845

We've identified these texts as great options for text pairings based on similar themes, literary devices, topic, or writing style. Supplement your lesson with one or more of these options and challenge students to compare and contrast the texts. To assign a paired text, click on the text to go to its page and click the "Assign Text" button there.

Annabel Lee
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe

Poe's poem, "Annabel Lee" was published in 1849 and is the last complete poem published by Poe before his death. It recounts the early romance of the speaker's now-dead lover.

Pair “The Raven” with “Annabel Lee” and compare how the theme of love and loss in developed in each poem.

7th Grade Poem
Excerpt from "Where Lovers Dream"
Excerpt from "Where Lovers Dream"
Anzia Yezierska

In "Excerpt from 'Where Lovers Dream'" Anzia Yezierska tells the story of a woman who runs into someone she used to know at a wedding.

Pair “The Raven” with “Excerpt from ‘Where Lovers Dream’” and ask students to discuss how love is depicted in the two texts. How are the poem’s speaker and the story’s narrator affected by losing their lovers? In what ways are their losses different?

11th Grade Short Story 600L
Click-Clack the Rattlebag
Click-Clack the Rattlebag
Neil Gaiman

In this short story, written by the award-winning author Neil Gaiman, a young boy asks his sister's boyfriend to tell him a story.

Pair “The Raven” with “Click-Clack the Rattlebag” and ask students to compare how both author’s build suspense throughout the text. What literary techniques do both authors use to build suspense? How does the development of suspense in Poe’s poem differ from the development of suspense in Gaiman’s short story?

8th Grade Short Story 600L
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare

"Sonnet 18" is one of Shakespeare's best-known love sonnets, known for its opening line: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

Pair “The Raven” with “Sonnet 18” to contrast different kinds of love poems and to continue discussing the question: How are we changed by love?

10th Grade Poem
The Landlady
The Landlady
Roald Dahl

In "The Landlady," Roald Dahl tells the story of a young man offered lodging by a landlady who has dark plans for him.

Pair “The Raven” with “The Landlady” and ask students to discuss how madness is connected to death. In “The Raven,” the speaker is driven mad by death — do you believe that the landlady is mad? Which details from the text support this conclusion?

8th Grade Short Story 780L
Showdown
Showdown
Shirley Jackson

In "Showdown" a teenager lives a haunting, reoccurring day in a small town.

Pair “The Raven” with “Showdown” and ask students to discuss how grief affects the speaker in the poem as well as the characters in “Showdown”. How are supernatural elements used in each text? How do the authors both manage to create suspense with their supernatural elements?

9th Grade Fiction - General 960L
The Crowd
The Crowd
Ray Bradbury

In "The Crowd," Mr. Spallner is convinced the crowd that gathers after his car accident is more than just a group of innocent onlookers.

Pair “The Raven” with “The Crowd” and ask students to examine how literary devices are used within both texts to create suspense. What do both the raven and the crowd symbolize? How do these things help to create suspense within the text? What techniques do both authors use to help create tension?

9th Grade Fiction - General 550L
El cuervo
El cuervo
Edgar Allan Poe

This text is available in both English and Spanish. Click here to view this text in the other language.

10th Grade Fiction - General Non-Prose