Use Mattie Stepanek’s Heartsongs book of poetry to inspire young poets to write about their own lives, experiences, and feelings. After reading the introduction to Mattie’s book, in which he talks about himself and his reasons for...

Numerous people from China immigrated to the US during the era of industrialization and expansion. Provide your class with a glimpse into the life of a Chinese immigrant through the poetry they left behind. They then compose a poem of...

Combine informational text and creative writing with one fun activity! Middle and high schoolers write found poems based on newspaper headlines that they find. The resource includes a thorough lesson plan and many links to articles that...

Poetry is everywhere you look! Create found poems using headlines from newspapers and magazines. Young poetry focus on creating alliterative phrases with words they find in headlines, tying their poems to a central theme.

Young poets get inspiration and guidance for making word association poems with the Visual Thesaurus. Your class could complete this project with nothing more than a pencil and paper as well. A nice one-off for a substitute during your...

Develop fluency with a variety of works. Help kindergartners use multiple strategies to understand text and decoding. They will create an alphabet poem book on Kid Works 2 to illustrate and write their own poem. In the end, they will...

Students engage in a discussion about how to write an acrostic poem. They demonstate the ability to use a word processor by typing an acrostic poem by following instructions. Word processing skills such as, centering text, changing font,...

Young scholars create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...

Amateur poets explore alphabetical poetry. They choose a topic and brainstorm vocabulary that relates to the topic using each letter of the alphabet. The class then generates ideas for a group alphabet poem. After creating one as a whole...

Tenth graders explore narrative poetry. They analyze sections of a poem and present to groups. They compose their own narrative poems using pictures as prompts. They exchange their poems and analyze their classmate's poem.

Bring a little excitement to your next poetry analysis lesson. Using the highly energetic poem "Walking With My Iguana," learners consider poem structure and rhyme. They listen to the poem, discuss the rhythm and tone with their...

Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...

Encourage the poetic genius in your young creative writers with a poetry workshop. Fix form poems (cinquains acrostic poems, octopoems, hello/goodbye poems) provide a framework and encourage vocabulary development as well as an awareness...

Film poems? To concluded a poetry unit, writers select one of their own poems and create a film that brings to life the sounds and images of their work. Included with the detailed unit plan are daily lessons, student examples, a list of...

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....

Students explore botany by participating in a language arts activity. For this garden poetry lesson, students read the classic poem "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" and discuss the imagery and rhyming methods used. Students examine their own...

Use this model, based on urban youth poetry competitions, to create an engaging venue for your poets to share their work out loud, with expression. Build class community, have fun, and celebrate your authors' original verse....

After a review of poetic terms, groups are given an object and they create a poem using a simile, a metaphor, internal rhyme, end rhyme, alliteration, and personification. Groups then exchange objects and repeat the process. Consider...

Embark on a journey of writing several different types of poetry. Fifth graders read several examples, and use the examples to model their own writing. Each poem is to be accompanied by a different art visual representation. In the end,...

“What’s in a name?” Just about everything. Barack Obama, Vincent van Gogh, Justin Bieber. Famous names evoke a multitude of reactions and poets often use the names of famous people in their works precisely because names carry...

Help your class create collective poetry following a simple, engaging model from Teaching Tolerance (tolerance.org). Each young poet writes five things on an index card: sayings from others, favorite sound, favorite place, favorite...

Poetry can be fun! To set your pupils giggling, have them listen to poems from If Kids Ruled the School by Bruce Lansky. Then, they can study the different types of poetry on www.gigglepoetry.com, and choose one form on which to...

Students work in the classroom and in the computer lab to produce a Personal Poetry Book.

Get your class up and moving as they explore how to express movement and dance through words. Designed around two poems by Lillian Morrison about break dancing, the activity truly captures the creative and multi-sensory aspects of...