University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge: How to Read a Poem
This resource aims to give A-level students a strategy and example for reading a poem. We asked a Cambridge student to read a poem as though they were going to write an essay on it, and to write down their thoughts as they went through...
Other
Gordon State College: Poetry Analysis
This is a detailed course assignment where students are asked to choose a poem from those provided and prepare an analysis of it prior to presenting it to the instructor. Students are given guidelines for an essay up to 3 pages long, and...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Writing, Reading, and Understanding Poetry
This tutorial focuses on different aspects of poetry: definitions, types of poetry with examples, and how to read, write, and analyze poetry. It includes three videos: a YouTube video of "El Guante" performing a free verse poem, a...
Lumen Learning
Lumen: Reading and Interpreting Literary Texts: Approaching Poetry
This lesson focuses on the how to approach the analysis of poetry. It provides a series of student activities such as having learners read and compare a draft and the final version of William Blake's "Tyger" which is followed by a...
University of Wisconsin
Univ. Of Wisconsin: Writing Center: Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis
This guide discusses how to approach analysis of a literary text, with the main focus being on the poem "Design" by Robert Frost. It explains how to examine the subject, the form, word choice or diction, and the theme. In each section,...
Other
Tips for Reading Dickinson's Poetry
Directions for engaging in close reading of Emily Dickinson's poetry are provided on this site.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Introduction to Modernist Poetry
Understanding the context of modernism is important for students before they analyze modernist texts themselves. To that end, this is a three-lesson curriculum unit: 1."Understanding the Context of Modernist Poetry;" 2. "Thirteen Ways of...
Other
Brock University: Critical Reading: A Guide
In addition to thoroughly exploring the purposes and functions of an analytical essay, this resource provides students with step-by-step instructions for reading and analyzing poetry, prose-fiction, and fiction. The site also offers...
Washington State University
Washington State University: American Authors: Reading Dickinson's Poetry
Here are several questions and ideas one should keep in mind while reading the poems of Emily Dickinson.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Literary Text: Close Reading of Poetry: Practice 3
This lesson will help you comprehend the poet's meaning by giving you practice in finding imagery, metaphors, symbolism, and allusions.
Other
Poetry Analysis for 10th Grade Language Arts
Choose from the poems, then complete the reading, discussion, and writing activities. A good wrap-up to a poetry unit.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: A Close Reading of Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry Picking"
Contains plans for two lessons that explain an inductive method for analyzing poetry. Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry Picking" is analyzed using this model as an example, although the method can be used on a variety of poems. In addition to...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Read, Write, and Analyze Poetry (Haiku and Free Verse Poetry)
This tutorial focuses on poetry; it defines free verse and haiku, explains how to write each, and provides examples. It offers a slideshow which provides tips for beginners on how to read poetry, how to identify types of poetry, and how...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: What Makes Poetry? Exploring Line Breaks
This lesson plan explains how analyzing poetry is a many-layered process. This lesson plan introduces the special characteristics of poetry and leads students through a look at how poems are structured and why. Includes links to poems...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: 103 Things to Do Before/during/after Reading
The highly-respected Reading Rockets program offers both teachers and students a toolkit of ways to connect more actively with the materials they read. Some of these techniques are specifically for fiction-reading, others are designed...
CommonLit
Common Lit: Units: 6th Grade Poetry Unit: Identity
Complete teaching unit for 6th Grade Poetry Unit: "Identity." Students will read 6 poems that speak to the theme of creating an identity. They will revisit the essential question: "How do we forge an identity?", read thematically-paired...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Introducing Metaphors Through Poetry
This lesson plan is designed to help young scholars begin to engage with metaphors on a deeper and more abstract level. The lesson plan will begin with a poem containing metaphors accessible at all levels, and with each poem, the lesson...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Browning's "My Last Duchess" and Dramatic Monologue
Reading Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess," students will explore the use of dramatic monologue as a poetic form, where the speaker often reveals far more than intended. The students will later write their own dramatic monologue...
Read Works
Read Works: Figurative Language 3rd Grade Unit
[Free Registration/Login Required] In this three-lesson unit, students use the book If You Hopped Like a Frog by David Schwartz and some additional short texts to learn to identify and understand the use of simile and metaphor in fiction...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Visual Essay [Pdf]
This PDF is a visual essay assignment in which students create a visual presentation of a choice of poems read previously. It must be planned, organized, and created in such a way that it reflects the meaning of the poem.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Teaching Tools: Teach Poetry in Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day
This teaching tool focuses on teaching poetry in less than 10 minutes per day. Turn your students into poetry pros with a quick structured poetry analysis. Focus Poetry is a technique of shared reading that provides multiple...
University of Illinois
University of Illinois: Modern American Poetry: Richard Wilbur
Read Richard Wilbur's biography and several commentaries about him.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Reading/analysis of the Works of Poe
An in-depth analysis of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, including "The Raven," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and more! Excellent and detailed lesson plans!
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Understanding and Analysis of Literary Text: Meter and Rhyme
OnTRACK English II Reading, Module 3, Lessons 1-12, and Practice Lessons 1-3. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the structure and elements of poetry, drama, fiction, and literary non-fiction, and provide...