Scholars build background knowledge to understand the life and work of the union leader and labor organizer César Chávez. As they read teacher-selected resources, they complete a Building Background Knowledge worksheet and engage in...

Students dramatize a poem. In this poetry lesson plan, students evaluate a poem looking for feeling words or descriptors. Students then draw a picture of themselves with a feeling.

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...

William Wordsworth's "Daffodils" provides young poets with an opportunity to examine how a poet can use powerful images and poetic devices to create vivid pictures in the minds of readers.

Here's a clever technology twist to writing in the round. Participants rotate through a series of computers adding to stories and editing by keystroke and mouse click. "Locked" forms prevent the loss of stories filled with suspense and...

Explore rhyming in this phonemic awareness and French lesson. Listen to the poem "J'Adore la Pizza" by Karen Kransky and identify rhyming words. Compare grapheme spelling patterns with like phonemes, and sort word cards according to...

Discover the concept of found poetry in this engaging lesson. Secondary students will explore the poem "Natural Selection" and compare it to the writings of Charles Darwin in Origin of the Species. Students chose a text and create...

As part of their reading of The Hobbit, readers create a biopoem for one of Tolkien's characters.

Students investigate the origin of words in the English language.  In this language history lesson, students examine words by breaking them down and finding their roots.  Students analyze words from a poem and complete a word...

Introduce magic and imagination into your classroom with a poetry activity. Learners read the poem "Tiny" by Mandy Coe and use their magic tickets to visit any place they can think of! The final result is a poem describing where they...

Here is a unit designed to support English language development. Scholars speak, move, and write to learn more about topics that focus on community and local concepts. The series of lessons aids to reinforce concepts...

Do your language arts students love to draw? Use this lesson plan to reinforce poetic techniques with illustration. After drawing what they think poem would look like with no words, middle and high schoolers work on several different...

Get even your most reluctant pupils reading, writing, reciting, and maybe even enjoying poetry! A four day lesson, young writers learn about Golden Shovel poems: a poem format that uses borrowed words from other poems as the last words...

After reading chapter 14 of the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, scholars take part in a read-aloud of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling and compare it to the reading of Bud, Not Buddy. Learners then go deeper into the poem...

Students examine how Tennyson and Noyes use words to paint vivid pictures. They read and analyze two poems, complete an online scavenger hunt, complete a worksheet, and write examples of alliteration, personification, metaphor, simile,...

Start by reading the poem "Everyone Sang" by Siegried Sassoon. The archive also houses an audio clip, so consider playing that instead of reading it aloud. After hearing the poem twice, middle and high schoolers will discuss a list of...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Which poem is best? Your kindergarten class follows along as you read three different poems. They decide which one they like best, then draw a picture to illustrate it. The class can also discuss why they chose the poems they did. A...

Here is a lesson plan in which pupils connect themes and rules to live by from the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis to those found in the poem If by Rudyard Kipling. First, scholars discuss their reading and review Bud's...

As a way to combine language arts and science, try this lesson plan on writing cloud poetry. Begin by showing a PowerPoint presentation and images of cloud types. Take meteorology masters outdoors to explore the sky using the provided...

Pupils take part in a close reading of the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling, in which they delve deep into its meaning and identify its rules to live by. As the grand discussion progresses, learners then relate the poem's rules with those...

A superb interdisciplinary approach highlights this lesson which incorporates space science knowledge and narrative skills. After reading The Magic School Bus, two excellent poems, and watching a video, all about our solar system, young...

Here is an instructional activity that asks pupils to analyze poetry and sparks discussion about two different types of texts: asking how is the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling alike and different from the story, Bud, Not Buddy by...