Language arts learners don't need a lecture about poetry; they listen to poetry every day on the radio! Apply skills from literary analysis to famous songs and beautiful lyrics with a activity about literary devices. As...

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...

Reciting poetry is a great way to build oral language skills and build classroom community. Pupils look at the text elements of poetry and choose a poem to read aloud. They focus on rhythm, fluency, and expression. This is a great way to...

Class groups examine a series of poems that use Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac as a motif in Holocaust poetry. Included are questions, notes to the teacher, and bibliographical information on each poem. The activities could be...

Begin class with a short comprehension quiz and review and then move into a new genre: two-voice poems. The activity provides information about this type of poetry as well as a video example made by eighth graders that you can show your...

A good poem has form and structure built into it. Middle schoolers see that the structure of a poem consists of stanza, form, rhyme, and meter. The structure also contributes to a poem's meaning. After listening to, and discussing, a few...

FANBOYS will enjoy breaking grammar rules, but they will have to use coordinating conjunctions, gerunds, compound sentences, compound-complex sentences, and even predicates as they craft poems like Shel Silverstein.

Looking for a resource that models how to read and analyze a poem? Check out this packet that uses sections of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" to demonstrate how to paraphrase, note literary elements, and identify the poet's inferences.

Pass the tea! Using the resource, scholars participate in a Tea Party protocol to analyze text and images about inventions that helped meet societal demands. After sharing their observations with each other, they discuss visual elements...

Students investigate how sound influences meaning in poetry by listening to sonnets. They write an analysis after listening to and reading sonnets.

Connect the ideas of jazz improvisation and art to writing poetry. Learners collaborate and write different lines of poetry, imitating the jazz styles of improvisation and freewriting. Take a close look at the poems "Tenebrae" by Yusef...

Exposing learners to the power of words in poetry is a stimulating way to learn languages. Songs, haikus, rhyming words, and narrative works are all employed in a resource for teaching English as a Second Language.

Students are provided an opportunity for self-expression. They collaborate with a partner and compose a list poem. Students practice reading and writing skills. They explore lists and catalogues--both elements of poetry and practical...

Tone and Mood are not synonymous! Introduce young readers to these literary devices with a series of exercises that not only point out the significant differences between the terms but also shows them how to identify both the tone and...

Explore poetry with your class by having them film themselves reading different types of poems. They explore different elements in all types of poetry. They choose images to accompany their poems and learn to create video presentations...

Combine the elements of dance with the actions in a poem. Learners review basic grammar, write an action-packed cinquain poem, and then choreograph a dance based on their cinquains. After the dances are done, they'll discuss the elements...

Students analyze the elements of poetry and jazz. In this critical thinking skills lesson, students take a closer look at the rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, form, free verse, lyricism, and imagery that exist is jazz as well as poetry. 

Sometimes saying I'm sorry just doesn't cut it. Scholars examine a series of apology poems, songs, and stories and consider each speaker's regrets. Using what they have learned, they analyze James Hurst's short story, "The Scarlet Ibis,"...

Young thinkers view two narrative art tapestries and study the images included that tell a story about the Roman Emperor Constantine. As they examine the details of the tapestries, pupils use a Venn Diagram to record the similarities and...

Pair the famous poems "I Hear America Singing," by Walt Whitman, and "I, Too, Sing America," by Langston Hughes, with a more recent poem by Elizabeth Alexander called "Praise Song for the Day" to demonstrate a theme and introduce your...

Students are introduced to elements of poetry through the book Runny Babbit. In this poetry activity, students learn about the newest Shel Silverstein book, then examine the poem's form, rhythm, and rhyme. Students look for other Shel...

Sixth graders respond to poetry. In this poetry lesson, 6th graders read the "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes and they are split into 3 groups for below, at and above grade level. Each group has a different activity to show...

High schoolers identify the distinction between literal and figurative language with a focus on metaphors. They complete a metaphor analysis chart, then practice expanding metaphors by composing their own comparisons of elements of the...

Now that your class has read all of Esperanza Rising, take the time to tackle big metaphors and themes. Pupils will participate in an activity called Chalk Talk, in which they circulate around the room in small groups and add...