Trees as Symbols: Composing Poetry and Creating Images

Film poems? To concluded a poetry unit, writers select one of their own poems and create a film that brings to life the sounds and images of their work. Included with the detailed unit plan are daily lessons, student examples, a list of...

Explore William Blake's poem "A Poison Tree." Learners read the poem and then respond to four text-based questions and four higher-level discussion questions.

Emphasize the difference between literal and figurative language, as well as how each adds to the plot, with a instructional activity on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Readers study the images of the pear tree, the...

Looks like? Sounds like? Smells like? Feels like? Tastes like? Sometimes a white, blank, soulless piece of paper can intimidate writers. Provide potential poets with this template that can serve as a parking lot for words and phrases to...

Bring together concepts covered in earlier lessons in the ten-part lesson plan series to analyze one of Poe's most famous poems, "The Raven." Class members discuss many different aspects of the poem and take turns reading lines and...

The hawk is a recurring symbol in Robinson Jeffers' poetry. Ask your learners to consider this symbol in the poems "Hurt Hawks" and "Rock and Hawk." Pupils discuss these two poems and compare them to poems read earlier in this series....

Allusion can be a difficult concept for pupils to grasp. Home in on two brief poems by Edgar Allan Poe, "To Helen" and "Sonnet–To Science," with allusion in mind. Class members discuss the relationship of classical Greece and Rome to the...

Nascent poets carefully examine a color photograph and then respond to a series of questions. Using these responses, they craft a poem prompted by the image. A link to powerful photos is included so the exercise can be repeated.

Analyzing atmosphere and symbolism by focusing on a well-known poem, The Raven, is the strategy presented to writers in this presentation. Sorrow, darkness, and many other image words are used to help students question and analyze poetry...

Numerous people from China immigrated to the US during the era of industrialization and expansion. Provide your class with a glimpse into the life of a Chinese immigrant through the poetry they left behind. They then compose a poem of...