Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 14: Dedication
Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....
Curated OER
Biopoem: Ender's Game
Here's an activity designed to encourage character analysis. Readers craft a biopoem for a character in Orson Scott Cards' popular science fiction novel Ender's Game.
Curated OER
Much Ado About Shakespeare
Lesson ideas to introduce pupils to the life, language, and works of William Shakespeare.
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 15: Theme
Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...
PBS
Dear Pen Pal
Explore cultures from around the world with an engaging pen pal resource. Through a series of classroom activities and written correspondence, children learn about the favoritec pastimes, schooling, geography, and weather that is...
Curated OER
Writing About Time: My Favorite Times
Start by clicking on the icon that says, "Download the Activity." The format is much easier to read and understand here! Then, encourage your class to write about some of their favorite things through a three-paragraph essay. Examples...
Curated OER
I'm A Poet and Now I Know It
Eighth graders gather ideas generated from other poems and their own inspiration, to create original poetry. A celebration is included as students bind and submit poems for publication.
Curated OER
Literature Response for Home-School Connections: Poetry
First graders practice reading and writing for a variety of purposes and audiences. Ten lessons on one page.
Novelinks
The Winter’s Tale: Bio Poem
Readers of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale demonstrate their understanding of the play by selecting a character and crafting a bio poem that reveals his or her fears and aspirations.
Curated OER
Biopoem: Bud, Not Buddy
Young poets focus on one character from a story they are reading, collect details, and use a biopoem template to analyze this character. The activity can be used with any text.
Curated OER
Poetry Anthology of Basic Forms
Students explore the format of the following poetic forms: acrostic, haiku, cinquain, diamente, and free-verse.They create a handbook or anthology of these poetic forms, with at least one sample of original work in each format.
Curated OER
Indian Reservation Haiku Poem
Students examine and write about the relocation of Native Americans to Indian reservations. They view and discuss primary source photographs, brainstorm for details and emotions in a small group, and write a Haiku poem about the...
Curated OER
Poetry IV--Similes and Metaphors
Students solve and write riddles using similes and metaphors. In this similes and metaphors lesson, students work in groups to solve descriptive riddles for famous landmarks. Students are given pictures of landforms and write...
Curated OER
Preposition Pizazz
Students examine examples of poems and identify the prepositions in them. They write original poems using prepositional phrases and create illustrations to go with them.
Curated OER
Who Am I?
Students complete an acrostic poem and use digital photo activities for the poem. In this acrostic poem and technology lesson, students use Word Art and digital cameras to create a technology integrated acrostic poem.
Curated OER
Borrowed Inspiration: Writing Social Commentary
Learners read poems with social themes. In this poetry analysis lesson, students read poems selected by their instructors and complete the provided social commentary chart to determine how the poems speak out against social ills....
Curated OER
Water Saving
Water conservation and management is the focus of this lesson plan. Students identify the need for being "water wise" in society through research and discussion. and present their findings in many different formats (short story, poetry,...
Curated OER
Sound Devices
Students examine the impact of sound devices in poetry, prose, and non-fiction. In this figurative language lesson, students read instructor-selected literature and identify uses of alliteration, repetition, consonance, rhythm, rhyme,...
Curated OER
The Catcher in the Rye: Biopoem
Here’s a catchy way to study characterization. Readers of The Catcher in the Rye select a character from Salinger’s classic tale to use as the subject of a biopoem. A teacher sample is provided.
Curated OER
Pride and Prejudice: Biopoem
Describe yourself or a character from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a biopoem activity. Using the provided format, kids write their own characteristics or the character traits from the novel to create a poetic portrait.
Curated OER
Natural Disaster Acrostic Poems
Fourth graders will conduct research to locate facts about natural disasters. Using a cross-curricular approach they will create acrostic poems with technology. The emphasis will be upon establishing skills for using powerpoint media.
Curated OER
Mix and Match Poetry
Third graders compare boring and vivid words: adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. They list them and come up with 10 vivid words on cards. They shuffle all the cards and use 10 to write "vivid" poetry.
Curated OER
Poetry in Motion
Young scholars create individual poems containing varied line lengths, punctuation, and rhythm, and explain how each contributes to overall effect of the poem.
Curated OER
Lesson Two: Rock N Rhythm & Rhyme (Part Two)
Second graders find rhythm and rhyme in poetry. In this poetry instructional activity, 2nd graders listen to different poems to find the rhyming words. They play a memory game and try to find two words that rhyme.