New ReviewLearners gain insight into how songs and poems express feelings of injustice. They also learn about literary devices and types of poems and make a personal connection when they write their own free verse poems about injustice.

How do writers use words to protest injustice, challenge the status quo, and shape their own identities? Individuals watch and discuss a video, read author biographies, write poetry and journals, develop a slideshow, and complete a...

Rhyme, rhythm, free verse, imagery: Do these words describe poetry, or jazz music? The answer is both! A resource explores these similarities as scholars watch a video, engage in discussion, read author biographies, write poetry and...

While it may be true that roses are red and violets are blue, not every adolescent poem must begin with those lines. The lesson plan provides strategies for teaching poetry analysis, helping learners improve their own poetry writing....

The Grapes of Wrath may be the most famous novel set during the Dust Bowl, but what other stories cover the same time? The unit focuses on the Karen Hesse novel Out of the Dust. Learners keep a timeline of the Dust Bowl, maintain a...

How do pupils relate paired passages to each other? Here's a resource that helps! The lesson includes a short story and a poem as a set of paired reading passages, followed by some analysis questions. It also includes an essay template...

Six tasks make up a lesson plan designed to reinforce comprehension and language skills using the poem "The Pied Piper" by Robert Browing. Scholars discuss and define unknown words, identify adjectives and onomatopoeia, review complex...

Scholars create a brochure that features three aspects of the poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." The program details information about Robert Browning, the poem's setting, and its events. 

Work on literal and figurative meanings with a lesson focused on Robert Frost's "After Apple-Picking" and "The Road Not Taken." Readers identify the literary devices used by the poet to set the poems' themes, settings, and narrative...

It's showtime! After an ample amount of preparation, scholars perform their final dance based on a phrase or word of their original free-verse poem. Following the performance, class members discuss their thoughts and feelings regarding...

Dancers revise their dances based on their peers' feedback and rehearse their final product. A poetry lesson provides scholars the opportunity to reflect in written format before discussing the project with their peers. 

Scholars rehearse, perform, and reflect on the interpretive dances they've created. Choreography and music showcase their free-verse poems and highlight its prosody. 

Scholars gather in small groups to share their final drafts of free-verse poems. Peers reflect on their reading with a grand discussion that focuses on prosody. Poetry groups choose one poem to choreograph using motion that reflects a...

Scholars visit their poetry groups in order to continue selecting music and creating choreography for their interpretive dance. Dances are designed to reflect a strong word or phrase found in writers' original free-verse poems. 

Using a rubric, young writers work in small groups to revise their first drafts of a free-verse poem. After a productive discussion, poets compose their final draft.  

After an invigorating interpretive dance, young poets compose their first draft of a free-verse poem. Peers share their drafts and reference a rubric in order to provide feedback. 

Budding poets brainstorm ideas for writing a free-verse poem. Once their topic has been established, writers list expressive words and phrases they can use to evoke emotion and paint a picture in the mind's eye. 

Groups create dances to showcase one phrase from a free-verse poem. Scholars reflect on their learning experience using an assessment in which class members respond to questions and share their feelings with their peers. 

Interpretive dance and prosody is the focus of a lesson designed to encourage movement and poetry analysis. Independently and in small groups, poetry enthusiasts explore a variety of free-verse poems, discuss specific words and phrases...

The five senses are the focus of a lesson designed to explore feelings that a poem evokes through a variety of words and phrases. After a read-aloud and grand conversation, scholars dance to the free-verse poem "Clothesline" by Ralph...

After a brain dance to warm up gross motor skills, small groups create and present a dance that showcases the free-verse poem "Sparklers" by Mark Vinz. The lesson closes with a progress monitoring system designed to assess comprehension...

Introduce the importance of prosody with a lesson that spotlights the free-verse poem "Sparklers" by Mark Vinz. Poetry enthusiasts begin with a discussion about using feeling and expression. They then take part in a vocal exercise that...

Poetry enthusiasts read the poem, Sparklers by Mark Vinz, discuss their feelings after hearing it, and create an interpretive dance based on the emotions it provoked. 

Encourage pupils to get up and move! A lesson showcases the free-verse poem "Dragonfly" by Georgia Heard, and challenges scholars to express feelings through interpretive dance.