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...

A detailed lesson written for budding poets challenges them to scan poems to discover stressed and unstressed syllables. Dashes and slashes highlight the syllables to count the feet, which makes the rhythm of the poem. Questions test...

Explication may sound like a fancy word, but it's just a fancy way to say analysis. Using a handout on poetry explications, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, writers learn how to break down and analyze a poem. The...

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...

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...

Lines from Shakespeare and from hip-hop artists provide learners with an opportunity to examine the literary devices these artists use to express their ideas about love. Groups use the provided lines to craft found poems, and then the...

This Groundhog Day add a bit of rhythm and rhyme with 23 songs and poems that put a spotlight on the holiday's shining star, the groundhog.  

Rhyme, rhythm, free verse, imagery: Do these words describe poetry, or jazz music? The answer is both! A resource explores these similarities as scholars watch a video, engage in discussion, read author biographies, write poetry and...

Here's a resource that deserves a place in your curriculum library. As part of their study of War Horse individuals create an anthology of World War I poetry. 

What makes a poem a poem? Give your class a basic understanding of some of the different aspects of poetry by showing them a slide show of poetic devices and elements. The presentation is quite long, so you might split it up into a few...

Young scholars write rhyming poems using rebus. With pictures instead of words, authors create original work about things they love. 

A repetition poem is the focus of a lesson that challenges scholars to compose an original piece. To add meaning to their poem, authors choose words to repeat at the start of most lines.  

Two poems by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman are spotlighted in a PBS lesson. Young scholars conduct a close reading and watch videos of Gorman reading her inaugural poem "The Hill We Climb" and "The Miracle of Morning." They...

The third lesson of five in an eighth-grade poetry unit has young scholars comparing Shakespearean sonnets with Petrarchan sonnets. To begin, they examine the different structures of the two forms and their different rhyme schemes. After...

Feel the rhythm! Pupils begin reading Act 2, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as they continue participating in a drama circle. With discussion, they examine Shakespeare's use of rhyme, rhythm, and meter, analyzing how...

Two sonnets provide seventh graders with examples of Shakespearean sonnets. After discussing the story of the poems and analyzing their rhyme scheme and rhythm, young poets craft a Shakespearian sonnet and share their work with two...

Who would ever think to go to sea in a sieve? Only Edward Lear's Jumblies! The poem "The Jumblies" is the inspiration for these poetry reading and writing activities that ask learners to think about how strangers are different, consider...

Young engineers turn poets with a hands-on activity that challenges them to apply the concept of rhythm to crafting a poem.

How does poetry differ from other forms of writing? Class members view two writing samples, decide which one is a poem, and then identify the criteria they used to distinguish between the two samples.  

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

War is one of the most profound human experiences in history, and is often best depicted in works of art and literature. Introduce class members to the poetry of World War I with this resource that uses John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"...

Young writers needn't be self-involved to craft a conceit. Directions for how to craft this form of extended metaphor, models, and a worksheet are all included in the packet.

Add a little fun and fancy to English language arts with an activity that challenges scholars to write a limerick. Authors follow five rules in order to compose an original poem that contains a specific rhyme scheme. 

Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death" provides high schoolers with an opportunity to practice their critical thinking skills. They examine the images, diction, rhythm, and rhyme scheme the poet uses and consider how...