Imagine an interactive that teaches young poets all the essential elements of poetry. This colorful resource does just that. Players are introduced to rhythm, meter, and rhyme schemes using famous poems. They practice marking 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.  

The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...

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...

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...

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...

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

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.

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...

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...

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"...

How do Poe's choices of imagery, rhythm and rhyme scheme, and structure help build the desired single effect of "The Raven"? After listening to a dramatic reading of the poem, class members consider whether Poe's choices do...

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...

After a close reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" individuals copy the rhythm and rhyme scheme and rewrite the final stanzas of the poem.

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

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...

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.  

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...

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...

Honor the great poet, Shel Silverstein with eighteen activities and lessons showcasing his collection of poems from the book, Every Thing On It. Activities challenge scholars to rhyme words, make inferences, recite a poem, and...

Looking for a resource to introduce homeschoolers and other out-of-class learners to the elements of poetry? Check out this packet that defines and illustrates important poetry terms.

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...

Poetry is all about sound and rhythm. The sound of the words, the rhythm of the lines, and the emotional atmosphere created by these elements and the literary devices poets use, compress whole stories into a few stanzas. The specialized...

The third instructional activity 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...