Testimony: A Lesson in Creating Poetry

Bring together concepts covered in earlier lessons in the ten-part lesson 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 sections....

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...

Extend your instruction on similes and metaphors with a lesson on Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" and "There is no Frigate like a Book." After a discussion on the images of each poem and their meanings, kids write an...

Consider the biblical allusions in Emily Dickinson's poetry with the seventh of ten lessons in a language arts unit. Learners read "A little East of Jordan" and "Come slowly - Eden!" and discuss the allusions to the original Old...

Prepare your class for a unit on A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines with an excellent set of materials. The first lesson of ten comes with an audio guide about the work as well as an interview of Gaines in a 30-minute video. Young...

In poetry, every word matters. Poets like Edgar Allan Poe make conscious choices when composing. Pupils take a close look at his poem "Romance," taking older word meanings into consideration during analysis and discussion. After a class...

Continue analyzing literature using textual evidence with a lesson focused on "I Felt A Funeral, in my Brain" by Emily Dickinson. Ninth graders bring their annotation skills and knowledge of figurative language from the previous...

Class groups examine a series of poems that use Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac as a motif in Holocaust poetry. Included are questions, notes to the teacher, and bibliographical information on each poem. The activities could be...

Students transform testimony of people who witnessed the Holocaust into eloquent poetry, using powerful words from the testimonies.

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...