EngageNY
How to Read a Poem: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
Learners listen as a teacher models how to read a poem using The Negro Speaks of
Rivers. They use the How to Read a Poem anchor chart to help guide their thought process on how a poem requires different reading than other text. While...
Curated OER
Heartsongs Poetry by Mattie Stepanek
Use Mattie Stepanek’s Heartsongs book of poetry to inspire young poets to write about their own lives, experiences, and feelings. After reading the introduction to Mattie’s book, in which he talks about himself and his reasons for...
Curated OER
Skill Building: Alphabet Poem
Amateur poets explore alphabetical poetry. They choose a topic and brainstorm vocabulary that relates to the topic using each letter of the alphabet. The class then generates ideas for a group alphabet poem. After creating one as a whole...
Curated OER
Creating a Peace Poem
Second graders write a poem using words from a list and practice poetic forms. For this lesson on writing a peace poem, 2nd graders brainstorm words or phrases associated with "peace." Students choose a poetic form to express their...
Curated OER
Acoustic Poems
Students explore acrostic poems. In this interactive poetry lesson, students visit the ReadWriteThink.org website to view characteristics and samples of acrostic poems. Students develop acrostic poems by using the interactive site.
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Searching for Meanings Beneath the Surface of the Poem
Students examine poems from Latin America and the Caribbean. They compare different perspectives and subjects in the poems. They research Peace Corps volunteers as well.
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"Your Son, Your Only One" - The Sacrifice of Isaac as a Motif in Holocaust Poetry
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...
Curated OER
Go Free or Die: Figurative Language
Figures of speech, sensory details, and academic language are all targeted while reading Chapter Two of J. Ferris’ Go Free or Die. First, learners engage in an exercise to practice describing with detail. Then, partners use a chart to...
Brethren High School
Romanticism Through the Eyes of Art, Poetry, and Technology
Use this simple collaborative activity to introduce the definition, art, and poetry of romanticism. Educators will have to provide the poetry, images of the art, and the survey for the learners, but by using this resource, they won't...
Curated OER
Personal Poetry Books
Students work in the classroom and in the computer lab to produce a Personal Poetry Book.
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Introduction to Poetry Lesson Plan
Analyze poetry in a group setting. Middle and high schoolers read lyrics to a Tom Petty song and free write about the song's tone, setting, and speaker. They then complete the same activity in a group setting using seven poems. The...
Curated OER
Famous Poems and Poets: Enjoy the World of Words
Class members select a culture from a provided list and research the customs, beliefs, traditions, clothing, and environment of this group. They then create an idea web and craft this information into a poem. The instructional activity...
Curated OER
Lesson: Paint Inspiring Words
The painting Three Young Girls circa 1620, was believed to be painted after the death of the subjects' mother. Art enthusiasts analyze the image details to determine if they come to the same conclusion. They then use the sensory details...
Poetry Class
Eccentricity and Sound
What do Lady Gaga and Dame Edith Sitwell have in common? As they examine Sitwell's poetry, class members learn that the similarities are far more than their unique appearance.
Curated OER
Lesson: Tomma Abts: Abstract Painting
One must first learn how to analyze art before they can properly respond to it. Here, young analysts examine six abstract pieces in a systematic and formal way. They then respond to one of the pieces in either a poem or an essay. An...
EngageNY
Looking Closely at Stanza 1—Identifying Rules to Live By Communicated in “If”
Here is a lesson plan in which pupils connect themes and rules to live by from the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis to those found in the poem If by Rudyard Kipling. First, scholars discuss their reading and review Bud's...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 2, Lesson 10
Audre Lorde's poem "From the House of Yemanjá" describes the speaker carrying two women on her back—she must be strong! Pupils read the second stanza using instructional activity 10 of 14 from the Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 2 series....
EngageNY
Introducing “If” and Noting Notices and Wonders of the First Stanza
After reading chapter 14 of the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, scholars take part in a read-aloud of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling and compare it to the reading of Bud, Not Buddy. Learners then go deeper into the poem...
EngageNY
Notices, Wonders, and Vocabulary of the Third Stanza of “If”
How does one's experience reading a poem's text differ from listening to its audio version? Delve into the insightful question with the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling, as pupils compare and contrast their experience using a note-taking...
EngageNY
Looking Closely at Stanza 3—Identifying Rules to Live By Communicated in “If”
Just as Bud, from the novel Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, had rules to live by, so does the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling, but how do the two relate? Pupils delve deep into the poem's third stanza, participate in a grand...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 2, Lesson 9
How do authors employ specific word choices to describe complex relationships? Scholars read and analyze the first stanza from Audre Lorde's contemporary poem "From the House of Yemanjá." Pupils determine the meanings of figurative and...
EngageNY
Poetic Tools in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Scholars listen to a reading and answer probing questions about If We Must Die by Claude McKay. Readers annotate their personal copies of the poem as they discuss its figurative language, vocabulary, and meaning. They then transfer their...
Curated OER
Language Arts Skills: Listening and Speaking Strategies
Your class can practice communicating clearly. They practice listening and speaking through games such asTelephone and a social scavenger hunt. This is a solid lesson that helps apply good communication skills.
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Poetry Beyond Words
Participate in writing poetry as a group. Focused on a given theme, young writers compose a popcorn poem using sensing verbs and adverbs. They write popcorn poems, onomatopoeias, collective poems, and diamond poems. You could introduce...