Eye contact, volume, and pronunciation are key ingredients to a successful presentation. Pupils present their two-voice poems to the class with their poetry reading partners. Next, to wrap up the unit, scholars use a worksheet to reflect...

Here is a really neat Earth Day reading passage that can be used online or printed. The initial passage provides learners with the opportunity to read a poem entitled, "Woodman, Spare That Tree!" It also includes comprehension questions...

Practice word processing while writing different types of poems. First, elementary and middle schoolers use Word templates to write poetry. They use rhyming and descriptive words as they work with clipart, text wrapping, and picture...

Explore poetry by reading the poem "The Walloping Window Blind" by Charles E. Carryl, and completing an analysis with your class. The activity provides the entire poem, a graphic organizer to help with summarizing and paraphrasing, and...

Close reading is key to the analysis and interpretation of literature. A close reading of the title and the epigraph of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” offers readers an opportunity to examine how even single words or names can...

Scritch, scratch, scritch. It's the sound of pupils writing poetry! Focus on sensory language and onomatopoeia with a writing lesson. After listening to some sounds, learners examine a couple of poems that include sound words and then...

Two exercises boost scholars' knowledge of a onomatopoeia with excerpts from famous poems. In exercise one, participants circle onomatopoeia words. Exercise two challenges writers to choose three words to use in an...

Whether you are viewing a landscape painting of a farm, examining a still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit, or reading a descriptive poem about cultivating food, you can't deny that agriculture plays a major role in visual and language...

A lesson plan begins with learners saying three words they associate with Thanksgiving dinner. They examine a picture of a menu from a Thanksgiving meal and discuss what they believe the artist wants them to feel, pointing out details....

Readers of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner select 100 words from chapters five and six of the novel, use these words to create a found poem, and then attach their poem to a kite that they construct.

A lesson celebrating identity begins with a something-about-me activity, then moves on to writing favorite words. Class members then brainstorm metaphors and comparisons and read a poem to inspire their poetic abilities. Scholars craft...

Young literary analysts compare two poems by the same author. Readers look for slant rhyme, observe the beat and rhythm of each, and search for repeated vowel sounds. After re-reading, they observe the lack of punctuation and the stanza...

Take heart! Here's a lesson that will encourage learners to notice details. After listening to Sarah Vaughan singing "My Funny Valentine" and noting how the word heart relates to Valentine's Day, scholars observe a human heart image....

Jane Hirshfield's poem "My Skeleton" asks readers to pause and think about the amazing, often taken-for-granted structure that protects and gives form to human bodies. After observing the human skeleton's image, class members read the...

Use a Visual Thesaurus to compose word association poems. Discuss poetry and word association, create word maps, then practice creating poems based on playful word associations. A perfect way to celebrate "Poem in Your Pocket Day" (April...

Students research the evolution and cultural significance of the Arabic ghazal form of poetry. They, in groups, compose an original ghazal poem and read it aloud to the class.

What does a successful reader sound like? Help readers gain fluency and become successful readers through repeated readings of given poems. They use the cover-up method to help them decode new words and chart their progress as they...

Thud! Squiff! Create sound effects with words. Introduce your youngsters to onomatopoeia with these fun, rainy-day poems. They write down sound words, discussing rhythm and rhyme. You can also incorporate the author's use of capital...

Here is a great worksheet that contains two short poems to compare and contrast. Children will read each poem out loud and then complete three comparative analysis questions which focus on rhyme, structure, and language. Note: The...

Beautiful illustrations and tender memories of cultural identity make Kam Mak's story My Chinatown an ideal resource for budding readers learning four vocabulary words in context: fortune, scraps,...

Study some of the most prominent poets and works of poetry in history with a language arts poetry unit. From Virgil to Shakespeare to Dickinson to Angelou, the resources present biographies and examples of poetic elements to...

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...

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...

Models of and directions for how to write 20 different types of poems are featured in an NCTE resource. The introduction to each form highlights the embedded concepts. For example, tongue twisters encourage poets to use alliteration and...