Spice up your traditional approach to teaching poetic structure with a wonderful animated video, which not only covers such terms as foot, meter, verse, but also stresses Shakespeare's unique use of iambic pentameter to convey emotion...

Expose the beautiful mystery of bulbs as young botanists learn all about these fascinating plants. They glean information from a short text before observing actual bulbs (consider an onion), and comparing their findings with predictions....

A cross-disciplinary lesson plan that incorporates language arts, social studies, and art into a creative project, this lesson plan would be a great fit for any middle school humanities classroom. After briefly learning about the...

These fun limericks all point to a Shakespeare play. You fill in the blank with the title of the play each limerick points to. A creative way to get your readers thinking!

How many different types of poetry are there? Let me count them; list poems, haiku, and makes-me-think poems are only a few. Learners create their own poems accompanied by artistic projects such as haiku poems written on kites.

A lesson that incorporates technology with the writing of Haiku poetry awaits your fourth-graders. After being introduced to Haiku poetry, they brainstorm a list of Spring images, words, and things that happen in nature. They write their...

A couple of days before presenting this lesson, have your class use their cameras outside to take pictures of nature. Their pictures are downloaded onto individual discs to be used in the computer lab later. In class, 4th graders explore...

New ReviewWriters take a look at how to gather evidence from the information text in the unit that connects to Salva and Nya’s story. They complete a Gathering Evidence from Informational Texts sheet to guide their work. Pupils then use the...

What can happen if you eat too much cafeteria food? Or wear dirty clothes every day? Or talk back to your mother? Use a lesson on humorous poems as a way for students to practice silly rhymes as fictional epitaphs.

Iambs and trochees may seem intimidating to some learners, but after reading a straightforward online lesson, they'll be masters of poetic feet! The lesson includes examples of trochaic poems from Edgar Allen Poe and William Blake.

Take your haikus to the next level with tanka poems, another form of Japanese poetry that regulates the length and rhythm of each line by syllables. Young writers read the explanation, examples, and tips for tanka poems before writing...

Writing funny poems is the best part about learning poetic forms! Young poets learn all about clerihews—humorous four-line poems about people—with an explanatory lesson.

Do you wish you could write poetry that makes people laugh? Now you can! Check out the first chapter in a poetry writing series that emphasizes the importance of connecting subject matter to a light, bouncy meter.

Acrostic poems are perfect for any topic! A quick tutorial guides learners into writing acrostic poems with the basics and key examples.

Introduce the importance of prosody with a lesson that spotlights the free-verse poem "Sparklers" by Mark Vinz. Poetry enthusiasts begin with a discussion about using feeling and expression. They then take part in a vocal exercise that...

Follow poetry instruction with a four-category rubric designed to guide budding poets' writing of free verse poetry. 

Focus on poetry this summer to enhance those comprehension, fluency, and language skills with a set of resources intended to explore different types of poetry, specifically lyric poetry. The daily activities contain differentiation ideas...

What makes a poem a poem? The narrator of a short video wades into the debate with the contention that the three characteristics that poems share are musical qualities, condensed language, and intense feelings.

The blank page can be a huge hurdle to overcome when writing a poem. Take that hurdle away with an interactive format that enables pupils to write elegant diamante poems. After they add the first and last words in two separate fields,...

Looking to cover types of poetry and informational text in one lesson? Use a reading comprehension activity that focuses on explanations of rhyming poems, acrostics, quatrains, and haikus, while prompting third graders to answer...

Third and fourth graders examine the many writing crafts that poets use to convey their message, such as rhythm, imagery, and repetition. By dissecting a poem into stanzas and analyzing the lines in each stanza, young poets are able to...

Put the tips and tricks in this guide into practice in order to encourage your pupils to blossom into poets. A wonderful reference material for teachers, this packet includes definitions of poetic terms and forms as well as step-by-step...

Spell out your first day excitement with S-C-H-O-O-L! Use a worksheet to fill in words for each letter to create a unique acrostics poem.

Shall I compare this project to a summer's day? Perhaps not, but you might find your pupils making similar comparisons as they work on their own Elizabethan sonnets. The resource includes an assignment page, a clever student example,...