Poetry or prose? That is the question facing middle schoolers as they begin a month-long poetry unit by examining the characteristics that differentiate poetry and prose writing. Pupils learn about poetic devices and different types of...

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...

Honor the great poet, Shel Silverstein with eighteen activities and lessons showcasing his collection of poems from the book, Every Thing On It. Activities challenge scholars to rhyme words, make inferences, recite a poem, and...

A band of brothers or the Devil's agents? Nobel warriors freeing the oppressed or mercenaries working for the military/industrial complex? Groups examine poems from the Civil War, World War I, and World War II to determine the poets'...

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...

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...

How does poetry differ from other forms of writing? Class members view two writing samples, decide which one is a poem, and then identify the criteria they used to distinguish between the two samples.  

Present your class with an overview of poetry-related information. The slides are clearly organized by topic, starting with reading poetry, ending with myths, and touching on everything from the five senses to open and closed forms of...

Is The Iliad part of your curriculum? Check out a resource that offers something for those new to teaching the classic and those with lots of experience using Homer's epic. Plot summaries, discussion questions, activities abound in...

Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos Williams...

Introduce your class to "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe with this series of activities, exercises, and worksheets. Class members examine an image, analyze a movie trailer, read a prose version of the poem, look up vocabulary, and pick out...

How did literature reflect people's attitudes in post-World War I America? A lesson explores the topic using a variety of activities. Individuals watch and respond to a video; read author biographies and engage in discussion; write...

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...

As part of their exploration of the American dream, class members examine primary source materials to compare immigrant experiences of those arriving early in our country's history to those arriving in the US after World War...

Challenge readers of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath to create a museum exhibit that uses artifacts to focus on one issue raised by the award winning story of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the Joads.

To understand the consequences of the 1704 attack on Deerfield by combined French and Native American forces, groups research primary and secondary resources related to four Deerfield families involved in the attack.

As the culminating project for a unit study of The House of the Scorpion, class members craft a multi-genre research paper to demonstrate not only their depth of knowledge of a topic of interest to them, but also their...