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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Biopoem

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Reinforce the actions, emotions, and characteristics that determine what a character is like by having your middle schoolers create a biopoem using the model presented here. You could engage them first by having them write a poem about...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Fluency Is Too Cool for School

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
What does a successful reader sound like? Help readers gain fluency and become successful readers through repeated readings of given poems. They use the cover-up method to help them decode new words and chart their progress as they...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

The Life and Lines of Robinson Jeffers

For Students 11th - Higher Ed
Robinson Jeffers had various twists and turns in his life that make for a great quiz! Fairly long questions are complex and detailed. Contains a lot of biographical information and a little bit of information about his poems.
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Personification #2

For Students 7th - 11th
Langston Hughes’ poem, Fall Leaves, provides the text for a personification identification worksheet. Pupils underline examples of this literary device and then write an explanation of how it is used in the poem.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Guided Reading: Three Little Pigs (Plus Wolf: Javalinas)

For Teachers K - 3rd
Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

What's Important to You?

For Students 2nd - 4th Standards
What are the most important things to your second graders? Learners read the poem "There Isn't Time" as inspiration to list things that are important to them. They list five things they would like to do in order of priority. Then,...
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Lesson Plan
Denver Art Museum

Putting Images into Words

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Engage your class in art analysis of Indian Look-Alike by Melanie Yazzie. Using this work of art as inspiration, writers compose a poem or short story. After a peer review session, the teacher conveys information about the work of art as...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

A Poem's Theme

For Teachers 4th - 6th Standards
Show young poets how to use the main idea and voice to determine the theme of a poem. Model the steps using Listen Children. Lucille Clifton’s This Morning provides guided practice. Finally, class members use Nikki Giovanni’s Legacies...
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Lesson Plan
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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
Curated OER

Producing Beats

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Turn your classroom into a music studio as groups work together to determine why music sounds different when performed live versus a recording. After listening to some different music, each group picks a poem, creates a recording, and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Do You Want to Be My Friend?

For Teachers K - 1st
Learners participate in a variety of emergent and early-literacy activities based on a "friendship" theme. Learners listen to the book Do You Want to Be My Friend by Eric Carle, then echo read, choral read, and independently read...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Poetic Elements Are Fun!

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Engage your class in the elements of poetry with a series of lessons and activities. The plans cover simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and imagery. Learners come up their their own metaphors, identify poetic...
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Unit Plan
Academy of American Poets

Voice

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Four lessons make up a poetry unit that introduces high schoolers to spoken and written poetry. Class members also examine poems as social commentary and connect these poems to various novels and plays. A great way to incorporate poetry...
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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
National Endowment for the Humanities

“The Great Migration” by Minnie Bruce Pratt

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Minnie Bruce Pratt's poem, "The Great Migration," offers young scholars an opportunity to reflect on how where we come from influences who we are. Groups conduct a close reading of the poem, recording observations about the poem's...
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Lesson Plan
Poetry Out Loud

The Tabloid Ballad

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What do the theme song from Gilligan's Island, the nursery rhyme "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat," and the poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" all have in common? Why, they're ballads of course! Challenge your young balladeers to compose their...
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Lesson Plan
EngageNY

Looking Closely at Stanza 1—Identifying Rules to Live By Communicated in “If”

For Teachers 6th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Writing Free Verse in the "Voice" of Cesar Chavez

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Introduce middle schoolers to free verse poetry with a lesson that has young poets read two free verse poems and list the common characteristics of the form. They then read a passage from Cesar Chavez's biography and a free verse poem...
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Lesson Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

"From Citizen, VI [On the Train the Woman Standing]," Claudia Rankine

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Claudia Rankine's poem "From Citizen, VI [On the Train the Woman Standing]," asks readers to consider direct and more subtle forms of prejudice. After discussing the format of the poem, its tone, and the emotions expressed, class members...
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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

Reflection

For Teachers 7th Standards
The tenth lesson in the 12-part poetry unit asks seventh graders to reflect on their learning about poetry and share their work with other poets.
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Lesson Plan
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1
Curated OER

Mood

For Teachers 7th Standards
Young scholars learn how to distinguish between the mood of a piece of writing (how the work makes the reader feel) and the tone (the writer's attitude toward the material) in the sixth lesson in a poetry unit. After watching two very...
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Lesson Plan
EngageNY

Introducing “If” and Noting Notices and Wonders of the First Stanza

For Teachers 6th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
EngageNY

Notices, Wonders, and Vocabulary of the Third Stanza of “If”

For Teachers 6th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
EngageNY

Grade 10 ELA Module 1: Unit 1, Lesson 5

For Teachers 10th Standards
If you've ever wished you could respond to an author's message, an instructional activity that connects three poems with the same concept will appeal to you. Based on the first few lessons' focus on Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate...

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