Curated OER
Breaking up a Poem
Complete with a SMART board presentation and all necessary materials, this lesson guides seventh graders through the process of writing poems and utilizing line breaks. After reading through the presentation and different examples, they...
ReadWriteThink
Alliteration All Around
Discover alliteration found in picture books by Pamela Duncan Edwards. Then, dive into a read aloud of Alligators All Around by Maurice Sendak. This practice sets the stage for budding poets to create their own acrostic poem, write an...
Curated OER
Nature Poems
Learners explore the visual, auditory, and verbal worlds offered by iLife applications to create a project that engages all learners and learning styles. They create a class book and CD of nature poems and artwork.
Poetry4kids
Rhyme Schemes Lesson Plan
Scholars read four brief poems and analyze their word usage in order to identify the rhyme scheme.
Curated OER
Structured Diamante Poem
Youngsters review nouns, adjectives and verbs. In this poetry lesson, readers choose a set of antonyms and create a list of synonyms, verbs and adjective for each. Students use the words to write a Diamante poem.
Curated OER
The Palm of My Heart: Poetry By African American Children
Elementary students explore African American culture by reading children's poetry. They read the book, The Palm of My Heart which features poetry by an assortment of young African American boys and girls. Students define several...
Teacher's Corner
Haiku
The haiku, one of the most popular fixed forms, is the subject of this writing activity, the seventh in a series of ten poetry exercises.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Practical Criticism
As an introduction to literary criticism, class members recreate I.A. Richards' close reading experiment. Individuals select a poem, paraphrase the story, focus on the imagery used, consider what the imagery adds to the tale, and...
Curated OER
Playing Vocabulary Basketball
Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...
Curated OER
Identifying Personification in Poetry
Improve your young poets' descriptive writing with this lesson on personification. A SMART board and PowerPoint presentation guide your class through the process of identifying human qualities attributed to various non-human objects. A...
National Park Service
The Poet's Toolbox
If you need a lesson for your poetry unit, use two poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ("Rain in Summer" and "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp") and a resource on Elements of Poetry. The lesson plan guides you through activities on...
Curated OER
Allusion in Poetry
Emerging writers identify allusion in poetry by listening to recorded poems, like Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town. They also discuss what makes writing satirical and how writers use allusions to make satirical points.
Curated OER
War Poetry, Journals and Letters: Viet Nam
Examine letters written during war-time. In this cross curricular history and English instructional activity, middle and high school scholars read letters and poems written by soldiers in the Vietnam war. They will examine the...
Curated OER
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Poems for Two Voices
"That man is not truly one, but truly two." The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde offers readers a change to craft a poem combining words and phrases from Robert Lewis Stevenson's novella to create a poem for two voices. The...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Lu Shih — The Couplets of T’ang
Writing poetry in ancient China was the modern equivalent of sending a greeting card. Scholars learn about the ancient Chinese poetic form called the lu shih. They read about the context of poetry during the T'ang Dynasty and complete a...
Teachers & Writers Magazine
Persona Poetry and Mask-Making
Looking to engage scholars in poetry with hands-on activities? What better way than making masks? Readers analyze literary devices in poetry, examine Native American masks, create their own masks, and then write poems to tell its story!
ReadWriteThink
Robert Frost Prompts the Poet in You
A great poem begins with an idea, an image, or an event that evokes a feeling. Middle schoolers read biographical information about Robert Frost and then identify details in three of his poems that reflect his life. Using suggestions...
Curated OER
From George to Martha: Writing a Sonnet Using Primary Sources
What was the relationship like between George and Martha Washington? To protect their privacy, Martha Washington destroyed all her husband’s letters after his death so historians have little evidence of their lives together. Two letters...
ProQuest
Writing Cinquain Poetry
Young poets research an animal and use the information they gather to craft and illustrate a cinquain.
Curated OER
Jeffrey and Sloth: Six Traits of Writing
Use drawings as inspiration. Have learners doodle for 10 minutes before beginning the instructional activity. Then, have them use their doodles to inspire a story. Several writing activities are included here to play with writing. One of...
Poetry Internation Volume 17, 2011
Alliteration, Consonance, and Assonance in Poetry
Three poems, “Under the Mangoes” by Jacqueline Bishop, Eleanor Wilner’s “What It Hinges On,” and Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” provide the text for an examination of alliteration, consonance, and assonance. After...
Curated OER
Writing Limericks
Eighth graders compose or create works of communication for specific audiences and purposes. They locate, access, and select relevant information from a variety of sources. They revise and edit their work to improve content, organization...
Curated OER
Poetry in Motion
Pupils explore poetry and technology. In this poetry writing lesson, students choose a theme and write a pattern poem, then create a related slideshow.
Curated OER
Art Analysis and Creative Writing
Students write an acrostic poem and analyze a work of art. In this art lesson plan, students look at a picture and answer questions about it, write a poem, write about the setting in the painting they saw, and answer short questions...