"Music Be the Food Of Love": Found Poetry with Shakespeare and Hip Hop

High schoolers often struggle with integrating quotes into their writing. Guide them through the most successful and efficient ways to address a text with a literary analysis lesson plan. As learners find examples of alliteration in...

Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and even centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos...

Need extensions for those class members who welcome additional challenges?  Check out the activities in this packet designed for The Fantasticks, billed as the "longest running musical in history."

Disguises and role playing are the focus of a resource that uses Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Henry IV, Part I, to demonstrate how we all play many parts in our lives; how we all are “merely players.” The many...

It's hard to beat the beauty of John Steinbeck's prose, so borrow a little of it to form your own found poetry. After kids finish Chapter One of The Pearl, they select the most evocative and vivid words to create found poems.

What is poetry? Does hip-hop qualify as poetry? Do Shakespeare's monologues qualify as poetry? Class members grapple with these questions as they examine the poetic elements and themes presented in different texts. Groups of four study...

Compare how word and phrase choice effects how abstract concepts such as theme are interpreted. Young analysts read then watch the film version of Death of a Salesman, consider word choice and theme, then create a found poem using words,...

Spice up your traditional approach to teaching poetic structure with a wonderful animated video, which not only covers such terms as foot, meter, verse, but also stresses Shakespeare's unique use of iambic pentameter to convey emotion...

The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...

Lines from Shakespeare and from hip-hop artists provide learners with an opportunity to examine the literary devices these artists use to express their ideas about love. Groups use the provided lines to craft found poems, and then the...