Curated OER
From Light to Dark and Back
Experiment with light and dark in a series of interactive activities that lead up to reading and writing poetry. Class members have the opportunity to observe their feelings while sitting in the light and dark and to play with shadow...
Education Oasis
Creative Writing Unit: Analyzing, Interpreting, Discussing and Writing Various Genres of African-American Literature
A six-week unit takes high schoolers through various works of African-American literature, including poems, plays, and short stories. The lesson plan format includes a week-by-week description of activities, goals, materials, and...
Curated OER
Chinese Landscape Painting
Third graders learn about Chinese poetry and landscape paintings, then create their own. They view several examples and discuss the elements of each, then paint their own landscape inspired by what they saw. They then listen to, read,...
ReadWriteThink
Alliteration All Around
Discover alliteration found in picture books by Pamela Duncan Edwards. Then, dive into a read aloud of Alligators All Around by Maurice Sendak. This practice sets the stage for budding poets to create their own acrostic poem,...
Curated OER
Carl Sandburg's "Chicago": Bringing a Great City Alive
Students examine the historical and cultural context in Sandburg's poem. The poetic devices of personification and apostrophe are utilized in the poem and identified by Students.
Academy of American Poets
We Sing America
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...
Curated OER
Poetic Elements
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...
Curated OER
Playing Vocabulary Basketball
Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...
Curated OER
Haiku and Cinquain
As you introduce your scholars to haiku and cinquain poetry, give them plenty of opportunity to practice. This brief worksheet gives an example of each, then scaffolds the syllable breakdowns for writers to create two poems of their own...
Curated OER
Themed Rhymes
Familiar sing-along rhymes about rain help scholars with phonemic awareness. They read the poems and write rhymes for four words. The clue here? Each of the words is out of one of the sing-along rhymes! Learners read a final poem about...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 1: Unit 1, Lesson 5
Scholars analyze words to determine the central idea of the poem My Last Duchess. Pupils begin by discussing homework and then form pairs to work through a list of questions about the poem. Finally, they complete a brief writing prompt...
National Endowment for the Humanities
The Poet's Voice: Langston Hughes and You
Middle schoolers complete a unit of lessons that explore the poetic voice of Langston Hughes. They define voice, read and analyze various poems by Langston Hughes, and complete journal entries for each instructional activity.
Curated OER
"The Charge of the Light Brigade": Writing Prompt and Pre-writing
Inspire your learners to experience poetry in an entirely different way with this resource. A writing prompt that goes along with "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, learners craft a reflective piece in the voice...
Indiana University
Asian Literature: “The View in Spring” by Du Fu
Over the course of the lesson, your pupils read and analyze a translated eight-line poem from the Tang Dynasty written by Du Fu, a poet caught behind enemy lines during the An Lu-Shan rebellion (755-763). Literary/historical context is...
Curriculum Corner
December Writing Journal
December writing activities galore! With everything from poetry to research to descriptive writing to writing about things that represent December, there's no way you will run out of options.
Curated OER
Love That Dog and Hate That Cat Teacher's Guide
This teaching guide for Love That Dog and Hate That Cat includes suggestions for how to integrate Sharon Creech's books into a poetry unit, as well as writing activities, discussion questions, and tips for making poetry...
Curated OER
Rhythm and Rhyme
Youngsters listen to poetry and music to understand that words are made of sounds. In this rhythm and rhyme activity, students create songbooks of healthy eating songs. They will also act out pantomimes and dance to the music....
Great Schools
Different Types of Writing
What type of writing is this? Learners read a brief introduction to various types of text: instructions, explanations, poems, folk tales, novels, informative, and arguments. The introduction doesn't explain these, so...
Poetry4kids
Twenty Fun Writing Prompts for Kids
Twenty prompts reinforce scholars' writing skills of essays and poems. Prompts cover topics such as superpowers, holidays, the weather, and more!
Scholastic
Who Am I? What Has Made Me Who I Am?
"Everything we have seen and touched and heard and experienced has, in some way, made us who we are." Your young learners will use this resource to create lists of influences (people, animal, nature, places, etc.) in their lives and to...
Seussville
What Can Your Class Do?
Inspire scholars to do their part for planet Earth with a read-aloud of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, and variety of activities designed to boost the environmental activist in us all. Activities include writing poems about the Earth,...
Ziptales
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Scholars create a brochure that features three aspects of the poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." The program details information about Robert Browning, the poem's setting, and its events.
Curated OER
Friendship Cinquains
Learners discover that a cinquain is a simple five-line poem that follows a pattern. They interview a friend and use what they learn to write a cinquain about that person. As an added touch, each of the poems are written inside the shape...
Curated OER
Be the Poet
Students work through a Haiku Organizer to determine the characteristics they use to write eight haiku poems on a theme that they choose. They design presentation folders of their completed work.