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Lesson Plan
Academy of American Poets

Teach This Poem: “In This Place (An American Lyric)” by Amanda Gorman

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Amanda Gorman, the United States's first National Youth Poet Laureate, is featured in a resource from the Academy of American Poets. Class members first read Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech and note what King wanted...
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Worksheet
Moore Public Schools

Lyric Poetry

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Discover lyric poetry through a reading of Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar and analyze its meaning with three short-answer questions covering symbolism, personification, alliteration, metaphors, and similes. 
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Study Guide
Penguin Books

A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Poems by Robert Frost A Boy’s Will and North of Boston

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed Standards
Here's a must-have guide for instructors who use Robert Frost's poems in their classes. The 24-page guide focuses on poems included in Frost's first two volumes of poems, background information on the poet, and what Frost thought was an...
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Lesson Plan
Facing History and Ourselves

Hardship and Hope: Teaching Amanda Gorman's "New Day's Lyric"

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Class members come together to study Amanda Gorman's poem "New Day's Lyric." After a close reading of the poem, learners watch a video of Gorman reading her poem, and then craft additional lines for the poem where they offer suggestions...
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Lesson Plan
Academy of American Poets

Teach This Poem: "In cold spring air" by Reginald Gibbons

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Reginald Gibbons' poem "In cold spring air" provides learners with a chance to develop their noticing skills. As a warm-up, class members watch Paul McCartney's video singing "Blackbird" and note words and phrases that stand out. They...
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Lesson Plan
EBSCO Industries

Music and Poetry

For Teachers 8th - 10th Standards
Song lyrics, like poems, are meant to be heard. After examining the literary devices in several poems, scholars examine the lyrics of popular songs and identify the sound devices and the figurative language writers use to create the...
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Activity
PBS

Write a New Year Poem Inspired by Amanda Gorman’s "New Day’s Lyric"

For Students 6th - 12th
Here's a new take on a new year. After watching and discussing the video of Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman performing her "New Day's Lyric," young poets craft poems that reflect their feelings about the past year and their resolutions...
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Unit Plan
University of British Columbia

Pondering Poetry and Playing with Words

For Teachers 9th
First-year High school scholars explore the world of poetry with an 11-lesson unit that examines a range of poetry forms and tries their hand at crafting their own poems. Young poets then collect their work in a portfolio that they...
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Lesson Plan
Academy of American Poets

Teach This Poem: "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Phillis Wheatley's poem, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is the focus of a instructional activity that asks readers to consider how the poem is a critique of slavery. Groups comprise a list of words and phrases they notice as...
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Lesson Plan
Academy of American Poets

Teach This Poem: "A New National Anthem" by Ada Limón

For Teachers 3rd - 12th Standards
Ada Limon's poem, "A New National Anthem," offers young scholars an opportunity to reflect on the significance of the US national anthem and the extent to which Key's vision applies to all Americans. After watching a video of Whitney...
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Unit Plan
National Center for Families Learning

The Summer Fun Summer Learning Poetry Unit

For Teachers 1st - 8th Standards
Focus on poetry this summer to enhance those comprehension, fluency, and language skills with a set of resources intended to explore different types of poetry, specifically lyric poetry. The daily activities contain differentiation ideas...
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Unit Plan
Curated OER

Looking North Of The Greek World: The Slavic Folk Poetry of The Balkans

For Teachers 9th - 11th Standards
Showing how folk poetry keeps alive national heritage is the stated goal of this proposal for a unit on the poetry of the Balkans.
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PPT
Curated OER

Types of Poetry

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Expose your class to various poetic forms. Listed in and described in this slide show are: ballad, lyric poem, ode, dramatic monologue, sonnet, and villanelle. Some descriptions are more detailed than others. 
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Lesson Plan
British Council

Love Poems

For Teachers 7th - Higher Ed
Language learners write down the words to a song as they listen to it. They then work in groups to write a love poem using the words and phrases they wrote from the song. As a culminating activity, scholars read their poems to the class.
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Lesson Plan
Prestwick House

The Poetry of Bob Dylan

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Bob Dylan's selection as the 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first songwriter ever to receive the honor, has focused the attention of a new generation on the work of the legendary artist. Class members analyze the...
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Lesson Plan
1
1
Curated OER

Poetic Devices

For Teachers 7th Standards
Introduce middle schoolers to poetic devices with a lesson that asks them to find examples of alliteration, anaphora, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, and personification in various poems. Young scholars craft examples of these poetic...
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Handout
California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc

Poetic Devices

For Students 6th - 12th Standards
Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...
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Unit Plan
Trinity University Digital Commons

Romanticism: Past and Present

For Teachers 10th Standards
With its focus on nature, individualism, imagination, and rejection of traditional authority, Romanticism has great appeal to young high schoolers. After examining classic paintings and poems as well as current works, class members...
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Lesson Plan
2
2
Curated OER

The Poetics of Hip Hop

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
Literacy Design Collaborative

Catching a Grenade: How Word Choice Impacts Meaning and Tone

For Students 8th Standards
Beyonce's "Halo" and Bruno Mars' "Grenade" provide eighth graders with an opportunity to consider how a writer's choice of words can create a very different tone even when the subject is the same. After a close reading of both lyrics,...
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Lesson Plan
1
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California Department of Education

Call the Tune: Music in Literature

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
I am dancing to the music in my head. Scholars learn to listen for music in their heads as they read literature and poems. After they identify and analyze poetic devices that relate to music, they create their own musical poems.
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Lesson Plan
1
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National Park Service

Lesson 5: Coded Spirituals, Metaphor in African Spirituals

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
If a picture is worth a thousand words, song lyrics also can communicate many meanings. Using the lyrics of spirituals, young historians analyze them for coded messages about freedom. Resources include a chart to help individuals track...
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Worksheet
Teacher Web

Poetic Sound Devices

For Teachers 9th - 12th
As part of a study of poetic devices, kids are asked to identify the assonance, consonance, and alliteration found in a series of lines of poetry, and then identify the rhyme scheme and the types of rhyme found in Poe's "Annabel Lee,"...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Parrot in the Oven: Instructional Routine

For Teachers 6th - 9th
After reading "The Bullet," a particularly intense chapter in Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members listen to the Spanish and the English versions of "Dimelo" by Enrique Iglesias. They then discuss how the song...

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