Curated OER
Alphabet Poems
Develop fluency with a variety of works. Help kindergartners use multiple strategies to understand text and decoding. They will create an alphabet poem book on Kid Works 2 to illustrate and write their own poem. In the end, they will...
Poetry4kids
Rhyme Schemes Lesson Plan
Scholars read four brief poems and analyze their word usage in order to identify the rhyme scheme.
Curated OER
Use Digital Photos of Scary Things to Inspire Poetry Writing
There's nothing like a provocative image to inspire a creative writing session. In the language arts activity presented here, middle schoolers bring in digital photos of scary objects, such as a big spider, or a hornet's nest. The...
Poetry4kids
Simile and Metaphor Lesson Plan
Similes and metaphors are the focus of a poetry instructional activity complete with two exercises. Scholars read poetry excerpts, underline comparative phrases, then identify whether it contains a simile or metaphor. They...
ETFO
Free Verse Poetry Rubric
Follow poetry instruction with a four-category rubric designed to guide budding poets' writing of free verse poetry.
Curated OER
"Music Be the Food of Love:" Found Poetry with Shakespeare and Hip-Hop
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...
National Center for Families Learning
The Summer Fun Summer Learning Poetry Unit
Focus on poetry this summer to enhance those comprehension, fluency, and language skills with a set of resources intended to explore different types of poetry, specifically lyric poetry. The daily activities contain differentiation ideas...
Curated OER
Short Poems Are Scary!
What do all those chairs and pencils do in the classroom once everyone leaves? Allow imaginations to run wild with frighteningly short poems!
Poetry Class
How to Make a Poem
Even reluctant writers will be able to craft poems using the poem making kit provided by this resource.
K12 Reader
Writing Valentine Poetry
The rose is red, the violet is...what comes next? Write a beautiful Valentine's Day poem based on the rhyme scheme and format of "The Valentine" by Joseph Ritson.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Elements of the Epic Hero Cycle
Here's a handy worksheet applicable to any study of epic heroes, including those in epic poetry. Readers record examples from their text that identify the quest, the tests, helpers and companions, as well as the low point, the...
Curated OER
Maniac Magee: Found Poem
Instruct your readers to scrounge through the pages of Maniac Magee in search for descriptive passages or words they may use to write poetry. As they look for meaningful, sensory descriptors in Jerry Spinelli's novel, readers...
Curated OER
The Pearl: Found Poem
It's hard to beat the beauty of John Steinbeck's prose, so borrow a little of it to form your own found poetry. After kids finish Chapter One of The Pearl, they select the most evocative and vivid words to create found poems.
Bolton Healthy Schools
Deal with Poetry
The stated goal of this unit is to use poetry to "improve the emotional health of young people." Budding poets read and then supply their own lines for poems that deal with alienation, loneliness, and rejection.
Prestwick House
Discovering Genre: Poetry
Work on literal and figurative meanings with a lesson focused on Robert Frost's "After Apple-Picking" and "The Road Not Taken." Readers identify the literary devices used by the poet to set the poems' themes, settings, and narrative...
Moore Public Schools
Lyric Poetry
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.
K12 Reader
Yeats and the Poetry of Ireland
W.B. Yeats' poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is featured on a activity that asks readers to respond to a series of reading comprehension questions.
Curated OER
Figurative Language Project
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...
Poetry Foundation
Dream in Color — Middle School
Celebrate diversity with a toolkit designed to inspire young poets to develop their own voices. After examining poems by African American poets, individuals craft their own poetic stories. The packet features poems by Gwendolyn Brooks,...
Teaching English
In Flanders Fields
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"...
Poetry Society
Simile and Metaphor
Young poets use word cards to prompt a metaphor poem comparing to very dissimilar items.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian In Your Classroom: The Music in Poetry
Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...
Curated OER
Poetry Through Digital Storytelling
Bring digital storytelling to your language arts class! To begin, learners select their own topic, such as a poem that reflects a life experience they had or a historical figure who interests them. Then they work to create a storyboard...
Curated OER
Personification Poem
Young scholars write a personification poem and identify its use. They make a pattern worksheet and then use Photoshop Elements skills to illustrate their poem. Students use layer styles with the text to highlight the poetry.