After a close reading Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll," class members craft an AP®-style explanatory essay in which they analyze the diction and other figurative literary devices the poet employs to deliver her commentary on modern...

Sixth graders explore figurative and literal language. They study literary devices through short pieces of Shakespeare's work. Then investigate Shakespeare's works and life.

Shed light on the beauty of language with a great poetry activity. After learning about Austin Kleon's blackout poetry model, pupils respond to some of his poetry and use it as a model to produce their own. Young writers also share their...

Introduce middle schoolers to the different strategies used when reading prose versus poetry. Groups use a Venn diagram and a poetry analysis handout to compare the characteristics of an informational text and a  poem on the same...

Using the poems "First Snow" by Ted Kooser and "Eating Alone" by Yi-Young Lee (or other suggested poems by Robert Frost or Sara Teasdale), middle schoolers search for examples of figurative language. Guide your learners by discussing...

Go beyond the textbook to gain a better appreciation for the English language. A series of ESL lessons help expand the concepts found in Theme 2: Give It All You've Got. The second lesson in a three-part unit incorporates strategies such...

When is a staple remover a fanged monster? In your ELA classroom when you're teaching this fun figurative language activity, of course! Get your young writers using figurative language by making a game of it. Give groups a paper bag full...

Over the course of a 12-lesson language arts unit, young scholars analyze a variety of poems taking a close look at figurative language and tone. They learn to compare and contrast, improve comprehension, and identify settings. To...

Similes and metaphors are the focus of a poetry lesson complete with two exercises. Scholars read poetry excerpts, underline comparative phrases, then identify whether it contains a simile or metaphor. They then write five...

Song lyrics, like poems, are meant to be heard. After examining the literary devices in several poems, scholars examine the lyrics of popular songs and identify the sound devices and the figurative language writers use to create the...

First-year High school scholars explore the world of poetry with an 11-lesson unit that examines a range of poetry forms and tries their hand at crafting their own poems. Young poets then collect their work in a portfolio that they...

The Hopi refer to corn as their children, demonstrating its importance to the Native American group. Class members consider the role of literal and figurative language by examining poetry from this indigenous group. The resource includes...

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...

As part of a mid-unit assessment, scholars draft their inside-out poems and then work on their "Back Again" poems. Learners use a rubric and graphic organizers to guide their writing.

Imagine linking poetry to technology! Thirty-three lessons comprise a 6-week "Women in Poetry" unit for high schoolers. Class members research women poets, learn how to respond electronically to discussions, write their poems, create web...

Introduce your class to the delights of nonsense poetry and explore literary devices with the writing of Edward Lear. Learners identify rhyme and meter as well as figures of speech, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in "The Owl and the...

Beyonce's "Halo" and Bruno Mars' "Grenade" provide eighth graders with an opportunity to consider how a writer's choice of words can create a very different tone even when the subject is the same. After a close reading of both lyrics,...

Team up! Scholars begin working with their research teams to review the components of an effective poem. They then move on to independent work by beginning the end-of-unit assessment. Writers complete the draft of their "Back Again"...

Scholars analyze a model poem to help guide their poetry writing. They use Think-Pair-Share to discuss word choice and meaning in "Papaya Tree" and "Wet and Crying." To finish, they use their discussions to collect evidence on what makes...

Metaphors are word pictures, creating images in our brains that draw readers to consider how two seemingly unrelated items are alike. Poems by Langston Hughes, Margaret Atwood, and Naomi Shihad Nye provide learners with an opportunity to...

What do all those chairs and pencils do in the classroom once everyone leaves? Allow imaginations to run wild with frighteningly short poems!

The big idea in this poetry unit plan is that structure and content work together to create meaning. Class members learn how to identify and mark the metrical patterns and line lengths used in poems. They study the structure of various...

We carry memories of where we're from; tweens and teens can capture these memories by first listening to several memory poems and then crafting their own. They analyze literary devices other poets use, brainstorm a list of images they...

Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...