20 ! most people read some piece of nonfiction every day of their lives. we are surrounded by news, opinion pieces, political speeches, and essays. think of a piece of nonfiction you’ve read recently that stuck with you after you read it. it should be a piece of nonfiction that was so engaging that you wanted to share it with friends. perhaps it was one of the pieces of nonfiction from this unit. describe the work, its context and purpose, and explain why it stuck with you. use that piece to explain how nonfiction compares to other types of writing. consider elements that are shared across types of writing and elements that are different in nonfiction. what elevates a nonfiction article in a magazine into a work of literature? what allows a piece written for a specific informative, persuasive, or other purpose to emerge as something more enduring?

Read this passage from “the fall of the house of usher.” which element of gothic literature is not obvious in this passage? as if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell, the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. it was the work of the rushing gust—but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady madeline of usher. there was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. for a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated. bleak or remote settings supernatural or otherworldly elements macabre or violent incidents strong language full of dangerous meaning