Pedagogical Stylistic Strategies in the teaching/learning of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of terror

Based on Edgar Allan Poe's terror tales, the aim of this research is to design an active/interactive course that renders the teaching of literature in EFL context more consistent with the student-centered and collaborative practices, to make students the responsible agents for learning in classroom. This paper reports the development and implementation of pedagogical stylistic strategies in an EFL literature classroom in Taiwan. Poe's terror tales are used to illustrate the pedagogical stylistic course design as well as the rationale behind the classroom activities(i.e. the linguistic stylistic exercises in and out of the class). Through a disciplined process of inquiry into the language/style of Poe's tales of terror, students will be guided to reflect critically on the language use, and gradually develop linguistic sensitivity and literary competence that are instrumental and applicable to their future career. Two groups of students enrolled in the elective course called "Major Authors" in two semesters participated in the experiment. The results of the students' learning performance and their evaluation of the literary stylistic learning experience will be reported.