Change, growth, and a sense of belonging are the focus of a unit that uses poetry to explore these themes and the distinguishing features of poetry as well. 

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...

The second lesson in a five-part poetry unit asks seventh graders to construct a metaphor poem. First, pupils examine Emily Dickinson's "The Railway Train" and identify the metaphor. They then select an object and an animal and craft a...

We carry memories of where we're from; tweens and teens can capture these memories by first listening to several memory poems and then crafting their own. They analyze literary devices other poets use, brainstorm a list of images they...

Budding poets compose an original free verse poem. Encouraged to use personification and alliteration, scholars read over three tips and examples then try their hand at drafting a poem of their own style.  

Present your class with an overview of poetry-related information. The slides are clearly organized by topic, starting with reading poetry, ending with myths, and touching on everything from the five senses to open and closed forms of...

Eighth graders craft a Petrarchan sonnet and respond to a performance assessment to demonstrate what they have learned in this five-lesson poetry unit.

To assess what scholars have learned throughout a five-lesson plan poetry unit, seventh graders first craft a Shakespearean sonnet based on a poem they have studied. In part two of the assessment, scholars complete a four-texts...

Discover lyric poetry through a reading of Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar and analyze its meaning with three short-answer questions covering symbolism, personification, alliteration, metaphors, and similes. 

Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" provide seventh graders with examples of odes. After reading and discussing these and other examples, young poets craft an ode and respond to the ode of a...

Explore poetry, personification, and multiple languages with a poetry reading and writing lesson. After the teacher reads the poem to the class, a discussion about personification follows. The class then writes a collaborative poem...

Engage your class in the elements of poetry with a series of lessons and activities. The plans cover simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and imagery. Learners come up their their own metaphors, identify poetic...

Introduce your class to "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe with this series of activities, exercises, and worksheets. Class members examine an image, analyze a movie trailer, read a prose version of the poem, look up vocabulary, and pick out...

Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...

Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...

Want a handy way to remember the difference between metaphors and similes, or allusions and alliteration? Individuals craft their own figurative language booklet, complete with definitions, examples, and illustrations, following...

Are your classes weary of dreary worksheets? Are the learners nearly napping? Thrill them, fill them with delight with an interactive activity that asks them to identify the figurative language Edgar Allen Poe uses to add horror and...

Introduce middle schoolers to poetic devices with a lesson plan that asks them to find examples of alliteration, anaphora, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, and personification in various poems. Young scholars craft examples of these...

Young poets learn the value of using a thesaurus when crafting and revising poems. They examine poems rich in figurative language and then a revised version with the figurative language removed. To demonstrate what they have learned,...

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," from The Jungle Book, offers young readers a chance to examine how Rudyard Kipling uses setting and personification to bring to life the brave mongoose who battles cobras to protect his family. Class members...

Brighten your third grade classroom with this series of colorful Common Core displays. Including all of the English Language Arts standards and substandards, each with supporting illustrations and examples, this resource provides clear...