Literature: Wind in the Willows, Humorous Poetry

In this study guide instructional activity, students read the book The Wind in the Willows and write summaries, use vocabulary, write questions, and more. Students complete 7 activities.

What can happen if you eat too much cafeteria food? Or wear dirty clothes every day? Or talk back to your mother? Use a lesson on humorous poems as a way for students to practice silly rhymes as fictional epitaphs.

Nothing's better than a really funny poem! Help young writers craft their funny poems with a lesson on one of the most challenging parts of writing: picking what to write about.

Put a silly spin on making amends with an apology poem. Budding poets think of a time they were made to apologize although they didn't mean it. They then turn their experience into a poem that offers details and ends with an explanation...

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.  

You've got your topic—now how do you make your poem funny? Explore ways to make a poem humorous, including puns, exaggeration, silly words, and surprising endings, with a helpful poetry lesson.

Scholars take part in two exercises to boost their knowledge of personification. After reading a detailed description and excerpts from famous poems, writers list action verbs and objects then combine words to create a humorous...

Funny poems don't have to rhyme—but it helps! Learn how to use rhyming words to add humor to funny, clever, or just plain silly poems.

Ever have students complain that they don't know how to write a poem? Turn those complaints into magnificent works of writing with an independent poetry lesson about not being able to write poetry.

If you like poetry, wait till you try backward poetry! Young writers read Shel Silverstein's "Backward Bill" before writing their own funny poems that are full of backward imagery and phrasing.