Curated OER
"I am a pirate with a wooden leg": Stomping Iambic Pentameter
What is blank verse? Iambic pentameter? Meter? Use the attached document to review these ideas with your middle schoolers. This plan has learners get up and stomp to iambic pentameter, which is a fun change from just clapping the meter!
Curated OER
Julius Caesar: iambic pentameter
Read in iambic pentameter! Read Julius Caesar and Macbeth to study the famous meter. While the lesson points out the specific passages to use, you'll have to find them and copy them yourself.
Star Wars in the Classroom
"Shakespeare and Star Wars": Lesson Plan Day 2
Ta DUM, ta DUM, ta DUM, ta DUM, ta DUM. The force will be strong in the hearts of your young Jedi as they use their lightsabers to strike the accentted syllables in lines from Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New...
Trinity University
Framing Poetry
The big idea in this poetry unit plan is that structure and content work together to create meaning. Class members learn how to identify and mark the metrical patterns and line lengths used in poems. They study the structure of various...
Star Wars in the Classroom
"Shakespeare and Star Wars": Lesson Plan Days 8 and 9
How does an author's choice of artistic medium influence an audience? What about how an author chooses to transform original source material? These are the questions class members grapple with as they compare scenes from episode IV...
Star Wars in the Classroom
"Shakespeare and Star Wars": Lesson Plan Day 3
To make the point that there are many forms of language, each with its own purpose, class members select 10 lines from Doescher's play, translate these lines first into contemporary English and then into "SMS/Tweet."
Star Wars in the Classroom
"Shakespeare and Star Wars": Lesson Plan Day 1
"Now is the summer of our happiness/Made winter by this sudden, fierce attack!" Luke Skywalker meets Hamlet in a 10-lesson unit based on Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope. Using Star Wars® as source...
Curated OER
Teaching Julius Caesar: A Differentiated Approach
While the themes of Julius Caesar may appeal to most readers, the act of reading the play can be a challenge. A unit plan related to the popular play by Shakespeare provides lesson plans and activities designed for differentiated...
Poetry Society
War Horse and WWI Poetry
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.
Poetry4kids
Rhythm in Poetry: The Basics
What makes a great poem sound so good? Learn the rhythmic secrets of poetry with an explanatory online lesson.
Curated OER
Introduction to 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...
Curated OER
Stomping and Romping with Shakespeare
Did you know that Green Eggs and Ham is written in iambic pentameter? Model the rhythm of language using Dr. Seuss’s tale. Direct class members to march about the room tapping their right foot on the first syllable and stomping their...
Curated OER
Listening to Poetry: Sounds of the Sonnet
High schoolers experience and enjoy the sounds of poetry. They erform sound experiments with sonnets and closely read and analyze a sonnet by Shakespeare. Students write an analysis of how sound affects meaning in a sonnet chosen from...
Curated OER
Shakespeare Analysis
Eighth graders focus on the Shakespearian sonnet as a form and analyze the sonnet in terms of structure, the particular rhyme scheme of the quatrains and the rhyming couplet, the rhythm of iambic pentameter, as well as any figurative...
Poetry Class
Free Writing
It will cost you little to ask class members to engage in a free writing exercise that helps even reluctant writers craft a poem.
Curated OER
Now, Unto Thy Bones, Goodnight.
Students read Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing to learn about epitaphs. In this Shakespeare lesson, students read sections from the play and piece together Shakespeare's epitaph using index cards. Students create a 4 line epitaph in...
Curated OER
A Walk Through the Past: A Grave Undertaking
Students explore how historians construct a story out of fragments of the past; a discussion of nineteenth century poetry and art leads students to connect art and literature to their place in time.
Curated OER
Exploring Rhythm in Richard III
Students analyze how the rhythm of how the words are presented affect meaning and tone in scenes from Richard III. In this meaning and tone lesson plan, students analyze dialogue between Lady Anne and Richard and how the rhythm and sound...
Curated OER
Catching the Beat: Exploring the Function of Verse in Othello
Students examine meter and how Shakespeare uses it in dialogue to show character emotion.
Curated OER
10 Things I Hate about Shakespeare
Students look at the works of Shakespeare to describe and explain relationships among some of the different texts. The writing of the learners has the intent of increasing comprehension, interpretation, and critical analysis skills.
Curated OER
The Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost
Check reading comprehension for "The Death of the Hired Man" by Robert Frost with this quiz. The tone of the questions match the serious tone of the poem and are very straightforward.