What do Beethoven, Bob Dylan, and Pharrell all have in common? Works by these three musicians are used to launch a study of poetry. Class members listen to passages from the music and craft a quick write about how the music makes them...

Introduce middle schoolers to poetic devices with a lesson plan that asks them to find examples of alliteration, anaphora, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, and personification in various poems. Young scholars craft examples of these...

Young scholars identify and analyze the poetic devices of alliteration, metaphors, onomatopoeia, personification, rhyme, and similes. They identify examples of each poetic device in songs, complete a worksheet, and teach the devices to...

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...

Language arts learners don't need a lecture about poetry; they listen to poetry every day on the radio! Apply skills from literary analysis to famous songs and beautiful lyrics with a instructional activity about literary...

If you need a lesson for your poetry unit, use two poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ("Rain in Summer" and "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp") and a resource on Elements of Poetry. The lesson plan guides you through activities...

In this repetition worksheet, 4th graders make a word card for repetition, find repetition and other poetic devices in poems, and answer short answer questions. Students complete 3 activities.

Are you teaching Modernism to your class? Connect different areas of artistic expression in the Modernist Era. Learners read T.S. Eliot, view art by Pablo Picasso, and listen to a Modernist musical composition. This final assignment is...

Bob Dylan's selection as the 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first songwriter ever to receive the honor, has focused the attention of a new generation on the work of the legendary artist. Class members...

Scholars take part in two exercises to boost their knowledge of personification. After reading a detailed description and excerpts from famous poems, writers list action verbs and objects then combine words to create a humorous...

Robert Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" and John Keats' "Bright Star" provide the text for a two-part instructional activity in which class members analyze the effects of style on meaning in poetry. Randall Thompson's song cycle...

Sixth graders look at poetry in music. In this language arts lesson, 6th graders listen to and read the lyrics of songs to find the poetic aspects of them. They focus on similes and metaphors and write their own songs lyrics.

With the songs "My Hometown" by Bruce Springsteen and "Allentown" by Billy Joel, learners examine external versus internal conflict. When they have finished the first part of the lesson, they create their own poem (or song) about the...

Combine your pupils' love of music with their growing knowledge of poetry! First, have them bring in their favorite songs for a discussion on word choice and literary devices. Then, use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the...

Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown” and Billy Joel’s “Allentown” motivate young lyricists to craft poems about their own home town. Groups compare the two songs, identifying details, symbols, and conflicts. Individuals then picture a place...

Students write a poetic analysis on a poem by Carl Sandburg. They take their previous knowledge of poetic devices and apply them to a piece of writing that displays their knowledge on a specific poem. They explain what they know about a...

Eighth graders craft a Petrarchan sonnet and respond to a performance assessment to demonstrate what they have learned in this five-lesson plan poetry unit.

Students explore literary elements through music. In this figurative language lesson, students examine imagery and personification in "The Wind Cries Mary" by Jimi Hendrix.

Learners explore the role of the individual in the modern world by closely reading and analyzing T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

Students read and explore one of Emily Dickinson's nature poems, "A Bird Came Down the Walk-" through interaction with a variety of art forms. Clips of a hymn to hear meter and the viewing of bird images exposes them to the language and...

Students analyze lyrics of their favorite songs as examples of alliteration, metaphor, Onomatopoeia, personification, rhyme, and simile to determine the purpose of these devices in poetry. They use their analysis to create a presentation...

Students complete rhyming word activities. In this rhyming words lesson, students play an online game for rhyming words and recite a well known nursery rhyme as a class. Students pick out words from the poem that rhyme and brainstorm...

This instructional activity focuses on how the blues both operates as poetry and informs the poetry of many prominent African American poets. Students consider the poetic devices and recurring themes in blues lyrics and the significance...

Students practice analysis of poetry by analyzing song lyrics using a worksheet to guide the analysis process. They work in small groups to assess the stylistic and literary devices used in the song lyrics then they find a published...