The Poe Museum offers on-site, virtual, and outreach opportunities for visitors of all ages. Additionally, we offer sensory-friendly and interactive programming for all learners. Our guided tours and programs align with the Virginia Standards of Learning, structured around guiding objectives which build students’ critical thinking and historical analysis skills. Take a look at our current program and tour offerings below.
On-Site Tours
Poe Museum Tour
Enjoy a guided tour of the world’s finest collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s artifacts and personal items. Learn about Poe’s tragic life and how it influenced his famous tales of terror. Leave with a greater understanding of the Master of the Macabre and his literary legacy.
Length: 45 minutes
Age: 5th-12th grade
The Junior Raven Experience
Created with a younger audience in mind, the Junior Raven Experience offers a shorter, and more age-appropriate story of Poe’s life, with less grisly murders and scary ghosts! The tour is followed by a craft project and interactive reading of “The Raven.”
Length: 45 minutes
Age: K-4th grade
To schedule a group visit or for more information contact: tours@poemuseum.org
Programs
What’s in Poe’s Trunk?
Students will be introduced to the way curators and museum professionals use objects to tell stories. This museum studies-oriented program asks students to become curators and to think collaboratively, creatively, and critically to craft a story using the objects contained in the provided trunks. Students will engage in hands-on and interactive learning as they handle and examine each object to figure out its story. They will then present their stories to the other groups to learn the different ways people can understand the same information or materials.
Length: 40 minutes
Ages: K – 6th grade
A Narrator on Trial
A dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” forms the basis of this program. This story explores themes of guilt and motive using literary devices such as the unreliable narrator and symbolism. Students will focus on these items during the dramatic reading and after the reading, students will “put the narrator on trial” and determine whether they are lying or not!
Length: 45 minutes
Ages: best for 7th– 12th grade
These programs are both available on-site or in a virtual one-hour format. Contact tours@poemuseum.org for more information about booking a program for your school group.
Virtual Programs
Poe in Pop Culture
Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy still seeps its way into today’s popular culture. But in what ways is Poe remembered today? Is it for his macabre stories, his literary accomplishments, his mysterious death, or some other reason? This tour gives a general overview of Poe’s life and literary works, focusing on Poe’s literary contributions to the genres of science fiction, mystery, and horror. Students will then examine various references of Poe’s works and his life in popular culture from Poe’s death to today and examine what factors led to Poe’s prominence in pop-culture, how truthful his legacy really is, and learn how Poe has shaped their own lives.
Length: 45 minutes
Ages: 7th– 12th grade
Poe and the Gothic
This program establishes Edgar Allan Poe as a fixture of Gothic fiction as well as an artist that is still relevant in today’s world. Students will examine the Gothic form and its history as well as analyze comparisons to other Gothic artists like Mary Shelley and Horace Walpole. Using text from “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Masque of the Red Death” students will understand Poe’s pioneering techniques in creating unease and how these techniques continue to be used in horror films today.
Length: 45 minutes
Ages: best for 7th– 12th grade
Outreach
Want us to come to you? We are happy to bring Poe-to-go and travel to your organization or school to deliver one of our programs. Any of our programs or virtual tours are eligible for outreach programs. Organizations or schools need to be within a 15-mile radius of the Poe Museum. Contact us to arrange your group’s outreach program.
To schedule a group visit or for more information contact tours@poemuseum.org
