Shell Silverstein’s “Sick” provides an opportunity for kids to demonstrate their understanding of syllables and phonemes. The class creates a list of descriptive words used in the poem that have more than one syllable, and brainstorm how...

Students explore poetry. In this poetry lesson, students discover the qualities of good writing and the characteristics of poetry. Students practice reading poems in different ways. Studnets also discuss the mood of the poem and the...

High schoolers analyze modernist poetry and the role of speaker in example poems. Learners study modernist poems from the Romanticism and Victorian periods as well as Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Using a...

Analyze the depth and beauty of American Literature by reading Emily Dickinson's letters and poems. The class analyzes Dickinson's poetic style and discusses Thomas Wentworth Higginson's editorial relationship with Dickinson. They pay...

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...

Iambs and trochees may seem intimidating to some learners, but after reading a straightforward online lesson, they'll be masters of poetic feet! The lesson includes examples of trochaic poems from Edgar Allen Poe and William...

Here is a nice way to introduce your young learners to poetry and writing their own poems. Children create their own poems about their favorite quiet-time places. After listening to some poems read aloud by the teacher, each child gets...

Celebrate April's National Poetry Month or enrich a poetry unit with a wealth of language arts material. Class members develop an oral interpretation of a poem and/or develop a podcast interview with a poet. 

Now that your class has read all of Esperanza Rising, take the time to tackle big metaphors and themes. Pupils will participate in an activity called Chalk Talk, in which they circulate around the room in small groups and add...

Lights, camera, action. Scholars use page 33 of The Most Beautiful Roof in the World to create a readers theater. They work in triads and use sticky notes to mark and create their own speaking parts from sections of the text. They...

Expose your class to a variety of excerpts of poetry with a reading practice activity. There are four excerpts from different poems included in this resource; there are three to five related questions for each poem. Learners read each...

Bring the imagery of the desert to your classroom with this ELL lesson plan. After reading Madeleine Dunphy’s Here in the Southwestern Desert, learners complete a graphic organizer about the features and images of the poem. The...

What is a Found Poem? Use excerpts of the setting presented in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to inspire Found Poetry. An explanation is given, and the second page houses an example of a Found Poem inspired by Black Boy, but you'll...

“Hope is a tissue, wiping away your problems and fears.” Use a Definition Poem Web worksheet to model for your class how to craft a free verse poem based on an emotion. After brainstorming topics, groups use the sheet to make comparisons...

Explore poetry analysis. Learners read the poem "The Poplar Field" by William Cowper, answer a series of questions, and discuss literary devices. It is a terrific way to help your class understand how to read and understand poetry.

Emerging poets design a website and then post seven original poems as well as their written critique of these poems. Although the resource mentions Inspiration and FrontPage technologies, any software could be substituted. 

Analyze poetry in a group setting. Middle and high schoolers read lyrics to a Tom Petty song and free write about the song's tone, setting, and speaker. They then complete the same activity in a group setting using seven poems. The...

Reinforce the instruction of sequence words using a worksheet that asks learners to read a poem, match words to their coordinating number, and use the words first, second, and third.   

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

Using an outline, learners write a poem. The poem is focused on highlighting their experiences. This is a great way to combine language arts and an exploration of self esteem.

High schoolers compare and contrast the genres of poetry and hip-hop. They view a poetry slam and write about it in their journals. Learners view a Lauryn Hill music video and respond to it in their journals. They compare and contrast...

For this Tanka poem worksheet, 6th graders analyze a Tanka poem for number of syllables and content parameters, then write one about a journey, real or imagined using the 6 step writing process.

How does poetry differ from other forms of writing? Class members view two writing samples, decide which one is a poem, and then identify the criteria they used to distinguish between the two samples.  

War is one of the most profound human experiences in history, and is often best depicted in works of art and literature. Introduce class members to the poetry of World War I with this resource that uses John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"...