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Roar-Shack Poetry
Students use tempera paints to create blots. They use the blots as inspiration for poetry writing by brainstorming and organizing all words they associate with the blot. They present their poetry along with their inspiration.
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Deciphering the Mechanics of Poetry
Eighth graders study poetic devices and use them in their own writing and apply them when reading poetry. In groups, they describe an item using poetic devices.
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Deciphering the Mechanics of Poetry
Eighth graders analyze a variety of poems to develop the ability to recognize and explain a variety pf poetic devises.
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Journey and Change: The Migrant and Immigrant Experience
Learners look carefully at two photographs by Dorothea Lange that relate to the universal theme of a journey. They identify parallels between Lange's photographs and two poems. They write about the theme of journey as it relates to their...
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Bait bucket Poetry
Learners create poems using a group of four predetermined words. In this poetry lesson students incorporate each of the four words into a poem that makes sense.
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Poetry: What's on Your Plate?
Students analyze "The Road Not Taken" and discuss examples of "roads traveled" by their own age group. In this poetry lesson, students read and discuss the meaning of the poem. Students choose another poem and review it for their...
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The Outsiders
Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...
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Newspaper Poems
Ninth graders appreciate the value of words, review the parts of speech, create original poetry, shape the poem, and write an explanation of the images he/she has created.
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All About Me
This is an awesome resource for any elementary or middle school teacher about to start a new school year! This resource includes an extensive list of activities for introducing the members of your class to each other. Some of the ideas...
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Lesson Plan for Waiting to Waltz: A Childhood by Cynthia Rylant
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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The Autobiography of a Middle School
Learners use digital cameras to document school experiences. Afterwards, they use computer software to manipulate their photos and write poetry, essays or biographies to compliment the pictures. Finally, students create an...
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Theology…the Use of Silence in the Classroom
Immerse your class in the Middle Ages with a thorough history lesson. After viewing examples of illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, they discuss how these were the mode of keeping and storing information employed by the...
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Responses to Literature
Middle and high schoolers hone their writing skills by reading Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and the poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out. They fill out a graphic organizer (included here), and use the organizer to write an...
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Making a Magical Story
Students create their own magical story. In this story writing lesson, students listen to the story The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe b C.S. Lewis to find the basic elements of a story. They come up with their own magical characters,...
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Making a Magical Story
Fourth and fifth graders use their knowledge of developing character, dialogue, and setting to produce an original story. An excerpt from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is used as inspiration to get everyone's creative juices...
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Poetry for Home: Homelessness
Students read a poem to learn about homelessness. In this poetry lesson, students make a list of words about their home and then feelings about their home. Students read the poem 'When I Think Home' and then write their own version of...
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Haunted Houses"
Learners read and analyze Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Haunted Houses." They define key vocabulary terms, discuss the poem's technical aspects, and create an original poem about a haunted house or a haunted place.
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Where's Walden and Why Henry?
Sixth graders understand how Thoreau can serve as both inspiration and model for the investigation of home places. They explore ways to become better observers of natural and cultural history. Students find out how to connect with their...
Bully Free Systems
Bully Free Lesson Plans—Seventh Grade
Having a hard time defining bullying with your seventh graders? Discuss the different types of behavior one would see in a bullying situation with a series of lessons, worksheets, and group activities.
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The Power of Poetry
Students utilize the Internet to research figures of speech used in poetry and poetry terms
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Spanish-American Voices in American Poetry
Eighth graders read excerpts from a variety of poems by Hispanic and Spanish authors in Spanish. Individually, they identify any vocabulary they are unfamiliar with and view examples of poetry elements. To end the lesson, they research...
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The Influence of Musical Folk Traditions in the Poetry of Langston Hughes and Nicolás Guillén
Students listen and explore how African-American culture relates to learning Spanish as a foreign language. Poetry, music, and history are utilized while learning about Langston Hughes and Nicolas Guillen.
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Pound A Poem
Students participate in various poem-related lessons to learn how they can make a difference in the lives of people they don't know. In this poetry instructional activity, students discover that this pound a poem competition is about...
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Fabulous, Fractured Fables
Elementary schoolers develop an awareness of the literary form known as the fable. They explore how authors write fables to pass along moral lessons. After reading and discussing many famous fables embedded in the plan, learners attempt...