Students explore and evaluate poetry. In small groups, they read and summarize poems, complete a handout, create and perform a dramatization of a poem, and write a journal entry in response to their performance.

Students read and write poems for two voices about the Civil Rights Movement.

Students examine the spoken work poetry of Abiodun Oyewole. They discuss the West African Griot tradition, listen to spoken word poetry, write and perform a poem, and watch a video excerpt of a poetry workshop.

Students explore Earth Day by creating an arts and crafts project. For this nature appreciation lesson, students utilize nature related vocabulary terms on magnets and put them in different orders to create interesting poetry. Students...

Fifth graders explore the connection between poetry and math by reading poems that involve numbers.  In this Shel Silverstein poetry math instructional activity, 5th graders listen to 5 poems read aloud and discuss how math was used...

Learners reflect on field trips in writing. In this journal writing lesson, students write about a recent experience by using 4 of their senses to tell what they remember. They turn these into poetry. 

Students replace nouns, verbs, pronouns, and adjectives in a poem. They identify the parts of speech, and rewrite the poem using their own selection of parts of speech.

Third graders read a book about emigrating to America. They create and illustrate a triante poem using sensory words, depicting something they liked about the story.

Students read about land and gardening and create found poems from the text. They use the poems to design interpretation quilts of communal text.

Students create found poems to represent characters in Twelfth Night. In this Shakespeare lesson, students discuss how to compose found poems and select characters from the play to write their poems about. 

Students read and analyze the twelve short stories in the novel "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." They create their own detective that has to solve a new kind of crime, and write and edit a short story with their original detective as...

Fourth graders explore language arts by analyzing poetry styles. In this writing analysis instructional activity, 4th graders read several sample poems in class and identify similes, metaphors and other figurative language within them....

Students create haiku poems. In this poetry lesson, students listen to the sound of the ocean from an audio file and write a haiku poem about oceans.

Students create an ocean haiku. In this haiku instructional activity, students use their five senses to write a haiku. Students watch videos about the ocean, make a sensory portrait, and create a class haiku.

Students construct a four-line poem to be used on the inside of a Valentine's Day card. They use a digital camera to show themselves to their "buddies" (local nursing home patients) who receive the cards on Valentine's Day.

Young scholars examine the emotion of anger through the poem 'A Poison Tree'. In this poetry analysis lesson, students identify and decode unfamiliar vocabulary they encounter, engage in groups discussions and complete several...

Students examine how the epic poem, "Ramayana" teaches dharma, one of Hinduism's most important tenets. They read the abridged version of the "Ramayana," identify the main plot points, complete a chart, and write an essay on a moral...

Students explore the genre of poetry through centers. They listen to the sound of poems being read aloud, visualize individual poems and observe and apply line breaks in poetry.

Students examine Haiku poems and analyze their meanings. They create a whole class Haiku, then develop their own poems.

Middle schoolers complete a unit of lessons that explore the poetic voice of Langston Hughes. They define voice, read and analyze various poems by Langston Hughes, and complete journal entries for each instructional activity.

Students use different qualities of movement to express themselves. In this lesson plan on movement, students use different qualities of energy and then use their experience as an inspiration for writing poetry.

Calling all performers! Scholars present a modern-day theme of adversity by performing their narratives for the class. As individuals watch their peers, they take notes on each performance using an Audience Note Sheet.

Third graders read "Seedfolks" and "What a Garden Can Teach Us" and discuss how a garden is like a community. They create a class quilt illustrating how their classroom community the lines of the poem.

Fifth graders focus on their self-esteem and strengths while reading poetry. In groups, they research the contributions and achievements of African-Americans and discuss how they overcame obstacles. They are read a poem, define new...