National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Preparing for Poetry: A Reader's First Steps
In this lesson plan, students will consider Preparing for Poetry: A Reader's First Steps. Worksheets and other supporting materials can be found under the Resources tab.
Utah Education Network
Uen: Rhythm and Rhyming
This lesson plan engages students in the shared learning of different poems of the month. Students will clap different rhythms and then apply clapping patterns to different poems of the month. Each poem will contain different rhythms and...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Analyzing Poetic Devices: Robert Hayden and Theodore Roethke
Students examine the relationship of poetic form and content, shaped by alliteration, consonance, repetition, and rhythm, in two poems about fatherhood: Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" and Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz."
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Put That on the List: Collaboratively Writing a Catalog Poem
Using the structure of a list poem, students combine creative expression with poetic techniques and language exploration in order to write group poems about what really matters in their lives.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Ain't Gonna Rain No More
In this lesson students will re-create a campfire song with internal rhyme and rhythm.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Ballads About Relatives
In this lesson students will write 4-lined ballads about their relatives.
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: The Poetics of Hip Hop
Students will analyze form in Shakespearean sonnets and hip-hop music. Concepts viewed in-depth include rhythm, form, diction, and sound. [Requires QuickTime 7].
Utah Education Network
Uen: Song Writing
This lesson engages students in writing lyrics to songs. Students will use free musical software to aid students as they put their lyrics to a tune and tempo.
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Pleasure of Poetic Pattern
Humans are creatures of rhythm and repetition. From our breath to our gait: rhythm is central to our experience, and often brings us pleasure. We can find pleasure in the rhythm of a song, or even the rows of an orchard. Of course, too...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Chants and Street Rhymes [Pdf]
Four pages of with chants and street rhymes. Three of the pages are reproducible examples and information useful to young scholars, and one page gives lesson ideas for teachers.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Noodle Alliteration
This activity allows students an opportunity to explore the dictionary and thesaurus to write creative alliterations about pasta after reading Jack Prelutsky's poem, "Spaghetti, Spaghetti."
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Animals Not to [Verb] With
In this activity, learners will create 4 original poems within a particular rhythm and rhyme scheme.
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter
Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad rap in high schools for his complex plots and antiquated language. But a quick peek into the rhythm of his words reveals a poet deeply rooted in the way people spoke in his time- and still speak today....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Swinging on a String
Students explore how pendulums work and why they are useful in everyday applications. In a hands-on activity, they experiment with string length, pendulum weight and angle of release. In an associated literacy activity, students explore...
Yale University
Yale New Haven Teachers Institute: Influence of Folk
This site, which explores the influence of musical folk traditions in the poetry of Langston Hughes and Nicolas Guillen, provides lesson plans, a biography, examples of Hughes' poetry, and details about his meeting with Nicolas Guillen.