Curated OER
Exploring Race Through Literature
Provide your class with an opportunity to examine race through a variety of literary works. They read and analyze a chosen poem, interview, speech, or story describing race in America. They then use key words from the original work to...
PBS
The Harlem Renaissance
A reading of Walter Dean Myers' "Harlem" sets the stage for studying the literature, art, and music of the Harlem Renaissance. The lesson begins with a review of the social, political, and economic conditions of the 1920s and 1930s that...
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
Conditions in China: Why Might One Leave Home Forever?
Primary source texts provide scholars with the background information they need to understand why Chinese peasant farmers were driven to emigrate. After underlining keywords, phrases, and/or lines in the texts, individuals craft a...
Poetry4kids
How to Create Book Spine Poetry
Can you create a poem without writing a word! With found poetry, you can! Practice one version of found poetry with a lesson on book spine poems. Learners create poems by stacking books and reading the lines created by their spine titles.
Poetry4kids
How to Create a “Found Poem”
Writers compose an original found poem by searching for words that inspire them. Words are taken from everyday conversation, books, cut from magazines, the mail, or an already written poem.
National Council of Teachers of English
A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry
Scholars work collaboratively to compose a found poem from one of their favorite stories. With a finished product in hand, class members form a circle and perform their work for an audience by taking turns reciting one line till the poem...
ReadWriteThink
Alliteration in Headline Poems
Poetry is everywhere you look! Create found poems using headlines from newspapers and magazines. Young poetry focus on creating alliterative phrases with words they find in headlines, tying their poems to a central theme.
Curated OER
"Music Be the Food of Love:" Found Poetry with Shakespeare and Hip-Hop
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...
Curated OER
Maniac Magee: Found Poem
Instruct your readers to scrounge through the pages of Maniac Magee in search for descriptive passages or words they may use to write poetry. As they look for meaningful, sensory descriptors in Jerry Spinelli's novel, readers connect to...
Curated OER
The Pearl: Found Poem
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.
Curated OER
Found Poem: Number the Stars
It's easy to write a found poem! First, select a passage about 50-100 words in length. Then, select only the strong, visual language. Now you're ready to write your found poem: simply string the words together adding (at most) two of...
Curated OER
Found Poem Worksheet
If you're teaching your class about the cycle of life and want to include a poetry element, consider this exercise. It provides a link to a Found Poem (a poem created from others' words, but an original idea) that includes words...
Curated OER
The Last Lecture: Found Poem
To focus attention on key concepts and vocabulary words in The Last Lecture, readers use power words drawn from the text to craft found poems.
Curated OER
The Kite Runner: Kite Making and Poetry Reading
Readers of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner select 100 words from chapters five and six of the novel, use these words to create a found poem, and then attach their poem to a kite that they construct.
Curated OER
Handout #3-Setting Found Poems
What is a Found Poem? Use excerpts of the setting presented in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to inspire Found Poetry. An explanation is given, and the second page houses an example of a Found Poem inspired by Black Boy, but you'll...
Curated OER
Creating a Found Poem
Teach your English learners about theme through this found poem project. Class members read two versions of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi": the original version and a synopsis. After learning about themes and connecting theme to their...
Curated OER
Ho Ho Poetry
Students read about the sights and sounds of a Las Vegas Christmas. They use words and phrases taken from articles in a recent issue of the New York Times to create a holiday-themed "found Poem."
Curated OER
Found Poem - Found Song
In this Louisiana music worksheet, students learn that a found poem is made using words and phrases from some things they have read and, then write a found poem following the steps listed on the worksheet.
Curated OER
Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth
Students examine the lives of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth. They create a "found" poem using the voices of both brothers and perform the poem for the rest of the class.
Curated OER
Found Poetry with Primary Sources: The Great Depression
Pupils read a sample found poem and create one together as a class. In this Great Depression lesson, students select a topic, such as miners, and read primary source documents related to the topic. Pupils select one narrative as the...