Curated OER
Picturing America: Images and Words of Hope from Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
A carefully crafted three-day lesson integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson activates...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
8th Grade Poetry: Narrative Poem
The first lesson of a five-lesson unit designed for eighth graders has class members reading and watching a video of Edgar Allen Poe's narrative poem, "The Raven." They then craft their narrative poem, illustrate it, and share their work...
K20 LEARN
Blackout Poetry: Re-Envisioning Writing
Introduce young poets to Blackout Poetry. Much like Found Poems, Blackout Poetry challenges scholars to rethink the process writers may use to craft their poems. After watching a short video in which poet Austin Kleon describes his...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
8th Grade Poetry: A to Z Poem
A two-part lesson asks eighth graders first to draw connections between the myth of Aengus and William Butler Yeats' poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus." In the second part of the lesson, writers craft an "A to Z Poem."
EngageNY
Peer Critique of “Inside Out” and “Back Again” Poems
Class members closely examine the use of words in the poems "Inside Out" and "Back Again" to determine if different words would create more powerful poetry. They then conduct peer reviews of the poems they created and offer suggestions...
EngageNY
Writing, Critique, and Revising: Two-Voice Poems (Chapter 14: "Las Ucas/Grapes")
Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....
Utah Education Network (UEN)
7th Grade Poetry: Ode Poem
Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" provide seventh graders with examples of odes. After reading and discussing these and other examples, young poets craft an ode and respond to the ode of a...
EngageNY
Peer Critique: Use of Evidence in the Two-Voice Poem
Peer editors review critique expectations before offering feedback on each other's two-voice poems. They record their feedback on peer critique recording forms, and then begin revising their poems.
EngageNY
Revision: Best Draft of “Inside Out” and “Back Again” Poems (Final Performance Task)
Scholars read their poems to their research teams as their final performance task. The teams listen and give feedback on the flow between the two poems. Writers then take the feedback from their teams and revise their poems before...
National Council of Teachers of English
Acrostic Poems: All About Me and My Favorite Things
Budding poets create two acrostic poems, one for their name and another using a word of their choice. Over the course of five days, scholars compose, revise, publish, and share their work with their peers.
Shutterfly
Photo Story Lesson Plan
After reading Loree Leedy's There's a Frog in My Throat: 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me, kids create and illustrate their own poems that convey the meaning of an idiom. The poems are then transferred into Shutterfly's Photo...
Curated OER
Creepy Read Week
Here's a clever technology twist to writing in the round. Participants rotate through a series of computers adding to stories and editing by keystroke and mouse click. "Locked" forms prevent the loss of stories filled with suspense and...
Bully Free Systems
Bully Free Lesson Plans—Seventh Grade
Having a hard time defining bullying with your seventh graders? Discuss the different types of behavior one would see in a bullying situation with a series of lessons, worksheets, and group activities.
Royal Conservatory of Music
The Anti-bullying Magazine
Get the word out about friendship, support, and a safe school community with a media literacy lesson about bullying. Young journalists investigate instances of bullying and take descriptive pictures as they compile a magazine to fight...