Using your voice to address those in positions of power—from school officials to government leaders—is an important part of being a citizen. Using that voice effectively is a skill. Luckily, our history offers us outstanding examples of master communicators, and you will learn from them in this unit. Think about times you’ve spoken to an authority figure about a change you want to see. • How did you go about it? • What would you like to learn or do differently the next time you are in that position?

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