Here's a must-have guide for instructors who use Robert Frost's poems in their classes. The 24-page guide focuses on poems included in Frost's first two volumes of poems, background information on the poet, and what Frost thought was an...

Poetry or prose? That is the question facing middle schoolers as they begin a month-long poetry unit by examining the characteristics that differentiate poetry and prose writing. Pupils learn about poetic devices and different types of...

Looking for a great lesson to teach your class everything they need to know about Shakespearean sonnets? Here's such a lesson. "Sonnet #18" launches a study of the Shakespearean sonnet. Scholars watch two Prezi presentations that provide...

Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part lesson that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of a poem. After...

Whether you choose to include Twelfth Night in your course or whether Shakespeare's comedy has been thrust upon you, be not afraid to incorporate an interactive resource into your study of Shakespeare's tale of loss, love, and identity....

Ideal for a language arts class, literary unit, or independent reading assignment, a set of reading worksheets address a wide array of skills. From poetic elements to nonfiction text features, you can surely find a valuable resource in...

Calliope calls kids to craft clever creations in this, the second in a series of ten poetry sessions.

A definitive resource for your figurative language unit includes several worksheets and activities to reinforce writing skills. It addresses poetic elements such as simile and metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and idioms, and...

Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" serves as a model for a poetry analysis activity. The whole class critiques the sample and then groups select a poem and prepare a PowerPoint presentation in which they illustrate how their poet...

Scholars demonstrate the ability to evaluate authors' use of literary elements such as metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, and onomatopoeia. They are provided with a checklist and must shop for poems that contain the poetry terms...

New ReviewCall Us By What We Carry, a poetry collection by Nation Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, is the focus of a 10-page teacher's guide. 

New ReviewNational Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb," featured at the 2021 inauguration of President Joseph Biden, is the focus of a six-page guide. The guide includes before reading, during reading, and after reading...

The big idea in this poetry unit plan is that structure and content work together to create meaning. Class members learn how to identify and mark the metrical patterns and line lengths used in poems. They study the structure of various...

Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise", offers young scholars an opportunity to consider how poets use literary devices to create powerful messages. After a close reading and discussion of the poem, class members reflect on how they can...

A reading adventure pack focuses on the weather, featuring a fiction and nonfiction book. Scholars read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and Seymour Simon then complete three creative activities. Participants craft paper...

Six lessons make up a unit all about Roald Dahl's George's Marvelous Medicine. Over time, scholars explore themes such as the power of words, exciting writing, and mixed feelings. They examine the writing's literary devices, persuasive...

Song lyrics, like poems, are meant to be heard. After examining the literary devices in several poems, scholars examine the lyrics of popular songs and identify the sound devices and the figurative language writers use to create the...

What's more fun than playing with your food? Writing a poem about it! A quick and straightforward lesson guides young writers through the steps of writing a funny, well-structured poem about combining sports and food.

Looking for a resource that models how to read and analyze a poem? Check out this packet that uses sections of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" to demonstrate how to paraphrase, note literary elements, and identify the poet's inferences.

Betty Botter and Theophilus Thistle provide models for willy writers to wrestle words into tricky tongue twisters. 

Tasking class members to analyze a poem can strike fear into the hearts of many learners. Here's a worksheet that takes the mystery out of the process by providing questions about what to look for in the text and to the devices poets use...