Curated OER
Collective Poetry: Teaching Tolerance
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...
Curated OER
Singing a round
Kids use their hands, bodies, and voices to explore the musical concept of a round. They say vegetable words while stomping and clapping out a rhythm in unison and then in a round. They then sing a round while maintaining a steady beat....
Curated OER
Asian Rhythms
Students experience another culture through a unit that explores instruments, spoken language, and calligraphy. Students experience the Asian culture first hand through a Taiko Drum Concert, as well as lunch at an Asian Buffet &...
Curated OER
Rhythm and Rhyme
Youngsters listen to poetry and music to understand that words are made of sounds. In this rhythm and rhyme lesson, students create songbooks of healthy eating songs. They will also act out pantomimes and dance to the music. Each...
Curated OER
Poetry As Oral Performance
Reciting poetry is a great way to build oral language skills and build classroom community. Pupils look at the text elements of poetry and choose a poem to read aloud. They focus on rhythm, fluency, and expression. This is a great way to...
Curated OER
Getting the Message: What Did You Say?
Students listen to and compare the first sentence of the Gettysburg Address spoken in different languages. They also compare frequency readings for each and discuss how the brain interprets spoken words.
Curated OER
The Poetics of Hip Hop
The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...
Curated OER
Introduction to Caribbean Music
In this Caribbean music worksheet, 8th graders read about the cultural background of the Caribbean nations and about the characteristics of the music. They examine call and response, ostinato, and syncopated rhythms. They answer 8...
Curated OER
Form, Rhythm, and Melodic Motives: Fiber
Students examine basic song form and 4/4 meter. They sing a song about diet and nutrition while identifying examining the rhythm of the song. They discuss why fruit and fiber are important to health.
Curated OER
Identifying Syllables Within Spoken Words
First graders participate in a conversation about what they want to become when they grow up, and identify syllables within the spoken words.
Curated OER
Poetry Vocabulary
Consisting of a thorough and straightforward list of poetry terminology, the first part of this presentation would be a good introduction to a poetry unit, or a review for an upcoming poetry project. The list of terms is quite extensive,...
Curated OER
Beginning and Ending Sounds - Lesson 1 of 2
Stamp, slap, and clap! Emergent readers demonstrate their awareness of the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds in spoken, short vowel, single-syllable words with a stamp/slap/clap activity. After identifying the letters and sounds of...
Curated OER
Catch the Gullah Beat: Rhythm and Percussion
Students explore the Gullah culture. In this social studies lesson, students construct and play instruments similar to those of the Gullah people.
California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc
Poetic Devices
Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...
Curated OER
The Poetics of Hip Hop
Students consider the role of rhythm, form, diction, and sound in poetry. In this integrated arts instructional activity, students discuss the attributes of poetry as they analyze Shakespearean sonnets, hip hop music lyrics, and poems by...
Curated OER
Shakespeare Analysis
Eighth graders focus on the Shakespearian sonnet as a form and analyze the sonnet in terms of structure, the particular rhyme scheme of the quatrains and the rhyming couplet, the rhythm of iambic pentameter, as well as any figurative...
Curated OER
Salad Sisters
Students practice and perform 8 and 16 beat rhythmic patterns in 4/4 using the song "Salad Sisters" as a basis in this elementary-level General Music lesson. An amazing lesson for teaching cooperative music composition techniques and...
Curated OER
Dance with Me
Second graders create a simple dance that illustrates the changes in rhythm in a song. They identify the form of the song. Ask volunteers to show movement or steps that could be used for each section
American English
Welcome to the Color Vowel Chart
Focus English language learners' attention on word stress and phrase stress with a pronunciation chart that breaks the sounds into moving and non-moving vowel sounds. The chart tool uses colors and key words to indicate where to put the...
Curated OER
If Paintings Could Talk: Art and Language
Middle schoolers learn about the artist Canaletto, play a vocabulary game, and create a landscape using collage technique. Background information on the artist is provided along with instructions for the game and vocabulary words to...
Ohio Department of Education
A Glossary of Literary Terms
If you're tired of defining allusion, onomatopoeia, and satire for your language arts students, hand out a complete list of literary devices to keep the terms straight. Each term includes a definition that is easy to understand and...
Curated OER
Up From the Streets: Hip Hop as a Recognized Art
Students discuss the historical roots of Hip-Hop to the present as an example of an art form that arose from the street into popular culture. Emphasis is placed on in-class discussion and written reflections in this introductory lesson.
Curated OER
A Midsummer Night's Dream Acts 1-2
Blank verse, stichomythia, soliloquy, allusion, oxymoron, malaprop? Readers of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will need to know these terms to successfully complete a study guide designed for the first two acts of Shakespeare’s comedy. The...
Gulf University
The Elements of Drama
Introduce young actors to the meanings of basic drama literary, technical and performance elements with this colorful presentation.