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...

Emerging writers identify allusion in poetry by listening to recorded poems, like Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town. They also discuss what makes writing satirical and how writers use allusions to make satirical points.  

Sure to engage your class in poetry, this resource requires them to identify, label, and explain poetic devices and figurative language used in Katy Perry's hit song "Firework". A well-organized page that chunks the lyrics so learners...

Students create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...

Bring a little excitement to your next poetry analysis lesson. Using the highly energetic poem "Walking With My Iguana," learners consider poem structure and rhyme. They listen to the poem, discuss the rhythm and tone with their...

Students examine the painting, The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan based on a poem by Lord Byron. They compare how Romantic artists and writers made choices about visual elements and language to depict their subjects.

Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading...

Learners explore botany by participating in a language arts activity. In this garden poetry lesson, students read the classic poem "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" and discuss the imagery and rhyming methods used. Learners examine their own...

Help your class create collective poetry following a simple, engaging model from Teaching Tolerance (tolerance.org). Each young poet writes five things on an index card: sayings from others, favorite sound, favorite place, favorite...

Get your class up and moving as they explore how to express movement and dance through words. Designed around two poems by Lillian Morrison about break dancing, the activity truly captures the creative and multi-sensory aspects of...

Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

Launch your poetry unit in a very dramatic way. Divide your class into groups, and give each group a different poem. After discussing the poem, each group member selects a stanza to study. The group then develops a skit that represents...

Students investigate syllabic metre and rhyming techniques by analyzing poetry.  For this language arts lesson, students read the poem Considering the Snail and discuss the nature and mood of the poem with their classmates....

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...

To better understand the cultural achievements of the Harlem Renaissance and become familiar with its major figures, class members examine a painting by Aaron Douglas and a poem by Langston Hughes and compare how the artists develop...

Learners explore the visual, auditory, and verbal worlds offered by iLife applications to create a project that engages all learners and learning styles. They create a class book and CD of nature poems and artwork.

Really? Rapping The Odyssey? Really. A discussion of the oral tradition of story telling and its links to Epic poetry sets the stage for a series of activities that encourage improvisation to integrate music into other classrooms....

Bring bullying out into the open with an involved lesson surrounding the animated version of Shane Koyczan's spoken word poem "To This Day." Class members discuss images related to bullying and watch the video without sound. They write a...

Learning to analyze language, symbols, and codes is part of becoming a deep and critical thinker. Young analysts consider their ability to see hidden messages as they analyze the work of Paul Chan. There are two fully developed...

Remember learning to spell “encyclopedia” by singing along with Jiminy Cricket? How about using a singing exercise to learn the names of the presidents? “The Presidents Song,” includes the names, in order, from Washington to Coolidge....

Students create an acrostic poem about winter. In this lesson plan about acrostic poems, students explore acrostic poetry. Students read an acrostic poem as an example. As a class, students come up with an acrostic poem for the word...

High schoolers research the surrealism movement and its primary artists. Language is also analyzed, and students will create their own original poem utilizing surrealistic techniques.

Learners explore poetry.  In this cross curriculum poetry and technology lesson, students choose a favorite poem and analyze its meaning. Learners select several images and music to represent the poem, then create a corresponding...