In the Poet's Shoes: Performing Poetry and Building Meaning

Examine poetic structure and literary devices in an activity focused on Maya Angelou's "Woman Work." The first two pages provide the full text of the poem, which middle schoolers can annotate and highlight. They go on to complete a...

Calligrams, or shape poems, are the focus of ninth exercise in a ten-part poetry writing series.

Why do writers choose the language they do? Here's a resource that has the poet himself answer that very question. Joseph Coelho explains why he chose the words and images he used in his poem, "If All the World Were Paper."

Have your English language learners puzzle through this activity. Class members read the incomplete poem about playing in the snow and use the given words to complete poem. This is challenging since some of the spaces are ambiguous. Ask...

Whether you are viewing a landscape painting of a farm, examining a still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit, or reading a descriptive poem about cultivating food, you can't deny that agriculture plays a major role in visual and language...

A fabulous presentation of poetry awaits your students. This rich, 14-slide PowerPoint presents many excellent ways for your pupils to compose poems. The presentation encourages them to play with words when composing poems, to analyze...

A good gift is hard to find. A “worn truth,” perhaps, as Billy Collins says in his poem, “The Lanyard,” but true nonetheless. After a study of Collins’ tribute to a mother’s love, young poets select an object that sends them “into the...

It's fun to write a poem with iambs! Practice using iambs in all types of different poems with an online poetry lesson.

A band of brothers or the Devil's agents? Nobel warriors freeing the oppressed or mercenaries working for the military/industrial complex? Groups examine poems from the Civil War, World War I, and World War II to determine the poets'...

Budding poets compose an original free verse poem. Encouraged to use personification and alliteration, scholars read over three tips and examples then try their hand at drafting a poem of their own style.