Curated OER
Poetry for the Elementary Classroom
Use Shel Silverstein's poem "Batty" to introduce poetry to young readers. This lesson is not formatted well, but the plan does suggest learners memorize a poem, recite the poem individually, and then recite the poem as a class. Poetry...
Curated OER
The Presidents Song
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....
Clark County School District
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
A thorough lesson plan takes your first grade class through Jane Yolen's beautiful Owl Moon. It crafts the unit with clear objectives, high-level guiding questions, cloze activities and sentence frames, and extension activities at the...
Curated OER
Poetry In Motion
Fourth graders read and analyze poetry and examine the process of writing poetry. They read and analyze the poem "From a Railway Carriage" by Robert Louis Stevenson, and answer comprehension questions. They identify the similes,...
Curated OER
Poetry in Song
Have your music lovers examine song lyrics and identify the poetry elements or tools used by a lyricist. They review the song individually before working in groups to discuss what they discovered about the song's narrator or character...
Santa Ana Unified School District
Early American Poets
The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...
Academy of American Poets
We Sing America
Pair the famous poems "I Hear America Singing," by Walt Whitman, and "I, Too, Sing America," by Langston Hughes, with a more recent poem by Elizabeth Alexander called "Praise Song for the Day" to demonstrate a theme and introduce your...
Curated OER
Writing and Autobiography
Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and demonstrating steps of the...
Curated OER
Playing Vocabulary Basketball
Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 2
Make up your mind to complete a lesson plan about "The Tell-Tale Heart" and forever rid yourself of simple sentence structures. As ninth graders analyze the first two paragraphs of Edgar Allan Poe's short story, they consider how text...
Curated OER
Thanksgiving Acrostic Poems
Students watch streaming video, Holiday Facts and Fun: Thanksgiving, define and discuss acrostic poetry, complete circle map using words associated with Thanksgiving, and create acrostic Thanksgiving poems to be typed in Microsoft Word...
Curated OER
Searching for Meanings Benath the Surface of the Poem
Students read "Soccer Until Dusk". As a class, they discuss the various settings and actions in the poem and discuss the life in Guatemala and compare it with the United States. To end the activity, they complete a journal reflection...
Curated OER
Unit Plan for Mark Twain and American Humor
Students create brochures about the humor of Mark Twain. In this literature-analysis lesson plan, students read "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and other short stories by Twain. Students write analytical paragraphs and...
Curated OER
Reading Pictures, Seeing Poetry
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.
Echoes & Reflections
The "Final Solution"
Nazi policies shifted from deportation and imprisonment to extermination of the Jewish people in death camps in the "Final Solution." Learners examine photos of artifacts, read poetry written by survivors, analyze testimony from...
Curated OER
Poetry
Fourth graders write a poem after learning about the elements of poetry. In this poetry lesson plan, 4th graders use voice and expression to write their poems and revise their poems if needed.
Scholastic
Reading Poems From the Academy of American Poets Chancellors
Start a lesson on poetic voice with a peer to peer discussion on what characterizes the strength in the voice with which a writer chooses to express himself/herself. In pairs, readers are tasked with reading and creating T-charts for...
Scholastic
Selecting Favorite Poems From Historical Poets
Here is a poetry lesson that begins with a free-association activity focused on the word voice. Learners each sit alone for a moment and make sounds that express how they are currently feeling, and then turn to their partners to share...
Curated OER
Letters from Emily Dickinson: Letters and Poems
Students analyze how Emily Dickinson perceived herself as a poet. Students read correspondence between Dickinson and her preceptor, Mr. Higginson to determine the depths of their relationship. Students interpret several of her poems.
Curated OER
The Learning Network: Poetry Pairing July, 21, 2011
Although not a complete lesson plan, this set of emotionally powerful texts could be used in a variety of lessons. From The New York Times' Learning Network site, the resource includes a poem, an excerpt from a New York Times article and...
Curated OER
Nutrition: A Thematic Unit
Young learners explore nutrition and the food groups in these two mini-lesson plan ideas. First, kindergarteners have a discussion about their health and how different foods contribute to it before making their own personal food pyramid....
Alabama Learning Exchange
Edgar Allan Poe's Journey Through Life and Literature
How was Edgar Allan Poe able to create "intriguing, memorable, and lasting literature"? To answer this question, learners analyze the syntax, diction, and characterizations in Poe's poems and short stories and compare the impact of these...
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
Conditions in China: Why Might One Leave Home Forever?
Primary source texts provide scholars with the background information they need to understand why Chinese peasant farmers were driven to emigrate. After underlining keywords, phrases, and/or lines in the texts, individuals craft a...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 8
You can often track a character's development based on others' reactions to their words or actions. Using Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," ninth graders work in a jigsaw activity to analyze how Mirabella's...