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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Rhythm & Improv: Jazz & Poetry

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students analyze the elements of poetry and jazz. In this critical thinking skills lesson, students take a closer look at the rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, form, free verse, lyricism, and imagery that exist is jazz as well as poetry. 
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Poetry: Using Prosodic Devices

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students examine poetry examples in free verse focusing on their prosodic elements. After critiquing works by several authors, they write their own poems utilizing such devices as alliteration, repetition, rhyme, and stanzas.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Poems and Songs: Rivers and Ponds

For Teachers 1st - 4th
Young scholars explore songs and poems related to the animals, habitats, and activities on rivers and ponds. They listen to song clips, explore various websites, read poems and song lyrics, complete worksheets, and define key vocabulary...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Prairie Poetry

For Teachers 9th
Ninth graders take note of the ways in which word choice, rhythm, language and narrative voice, as well as point of view in a poem can be used to evoke a time and place. They use their insights to create a poem of their own.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Ideas for Teaching Creative Poetry

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students read and write a variety of forms of poetry and create an original page for a class "I Spy" book. They read and discuss the form of poetry used in the "I Spy" books, and conduct Internet research on how the "I Spy" books are...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

African American Poetry: Family and Traditions

For Teachers K - 3rd
Young scholars are introduced to the elements of African-American poetry. As a class, they are read different types of poems to discover there are different styles of poems and practice rhyming words. They share information on their...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Out of the Dust 4

For Teachers 8th
Eighth graders read the novel, "Out of the Dust," and create a free-verse poem about a treasure of their own. They use the attached checklist to evaluate their own poem.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Out of the Dust (High School)

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders read Hesse's "Out of the Dust". They respond to questions about the novel and write a free-verse poem modeled after the author's.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson Plan for Waiting to Waltz: A Childhood by Cynthia Rylant

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders examine the elements of writing poetry. In this creative writing activity, 6th graders discuss a book of poetry in the setting of Appalachia. Students incorporate childhood experiences into the development of visual and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Insight Arts

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students view a mural and identify, describe, and discuss what they see. They are introduced to and demonstrate the functions of key structural elements of poetry by writing a poem about themselves that highlights their interests and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Exploring the Life of a Slave

For Teachers 11th
Eleventh graders explore importance of abolitionists who worked to advance freedoms of black Americans prior to/during Reconstruction era, read and identify key concepts in Frederick Douglass's narrative, recognize how Douglass's slave...
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Lesson Plan
Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Section Two: Why is Biodiversity Important?

For Teachers 3rd - 5th Standards
Explore soil, genetic traits, natural resources, and pollution in a series of lessons that focus on biodiversity. Kids complete experiments to learn more about the importance of varied genes and organisms in an ecosystem.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Poetry of the City

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students explore Walt Whitman and about poetry. Most importantly, it teach them that poetry is something anyone can write and encourage them to tell the story of their own community in verse
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Poetry

For Teachers 4th - 7th
Students reflect on a news report through poetry. Students write a poem based on this week's news events. Students share poems with each other. Students reflect on a poem of their choosing.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Confetti

For Teachers 3rd
Third graders complete pre reading, writing, during reading, and interdisciplinary activities for the book Confetti. In this reading lesson plan, 3rd graders complete journal entries, go over vocabulary, answer short answer questions,...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Images and Indirection

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed
Students closely analyze a true event or moments associated with their life, then present the scene, and personal emotions and/or actions generated by that incident in a free verse poem. They learn the difference between words defined...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

So You Want to Be A Poet?

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders study different types of poetry and then write examples in this unit. They write, among others, free verse, Diamante, Clerihew, and color poems.
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Lesson Plan
Crafting Freedom

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Lover of Literacy

For Teachers 6th - 8th
This, the sixth in a series of 10 related resources, examines the life and works of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, an African American author, born in 1825, who advocated literacy for both free and enslaved African Americans.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

We're Going to the Zoo!

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Young scholars write and publish a poem as part of a class poetry collection after analyzing the poetic structures of haiku, limericks, sound poems and free verse. After viewing a multimedia demonstration of the poetic structures, and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Out of the Dust

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students create a poem that expresses the physical and emotional turmoil of living through the Dust Bowl.  In this Out of the Dust lesson, students research facts about the time period and discuss the cause-effect patterns associated...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Poetry Reading and Writing

For Teachers 5th
Fifth graders go over with teacher the two parts of the book A CHILD'S INTRODUCTION TO POETRY discussing the different types. They choose a couple of their favorite types or poets and write their own poems following the poet's particular...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Where in the World?

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders research online various types of poetry. In this poetry analysis activity, 6th graders research different types of poetry online, their characteristics, and poets. Students create a class atlas that incorporates the seven...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Modern American Poetry

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students identify different types of literary terms in poems. They read different poems and create a packet summarizing them. They write a poem of their own and a biography of one of their favorite poets.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Design a Poet-T

For Teachers 3rd - 12th
Students gather poems they find of interest to them. They create a t-shrit with the poem and a design. They share their poems with the rest of the class.