Edward Lear, Limericks, and Nonsense: There Once Was...

Young poets try their hand at one of the most popular fixed poetry forms, the limerick. The eighth in a series of ten poetry writing exercises.

Take a look at one of Aesop's classic fables, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, from a slightly different perspective by considering the type of consequences that can result from abusing power.

Scholars are lucky to stretch their poetry writing muscles with a worksheet that challenges them to compose two limericks—one about a boy and the other about a dog. 

Who would ever think to go to sea in a sieve? Only Edward Lear's Jumblies! The poem "The Jumblies" is the inspiration for these poetry reading and writing activities that ask learners to think about how strangers are different, consider...

Fables can teach us about life's morals, but they are also helpful for reviewing verb tense, spelling, and word choice. Three reading passages feature well-known fables, each with several opportunities for students to circle the correct...

Exposing learners to the power of words in poetry is a stimulating way to learn languages. Songs, haikus, rhyming words, and narrative works are all employed in a resource for teaching English as a Second Language.

Introduce your class to the limerick with a focus on the form and its history. Resource is short on procedure, but contains useful suggestions about where to look for school-appropriate limericks for young readers. Examine the...

Young oceanographers conduct independent online research to learn about ocean life, explore limerick and cinquain poem structure and syllabication, and produce poetry that conveys the information they found. Links don't work, but it's...

Introduce your class to the delights of nonsense poetry and explore literary devices with the writing of Edward Lear. Learners identify rhyme and meter as well as figures of speech, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in "The Owl and the...

Students explore limericks. In this poetry writing lesson, students listen to and read a variety of poems written by Edward Lear. Students count syllables and identify meter by clapping as they read aloud. Students complete a limerick...