Launch your poetry unit in a very dramatic way. Divide your class into groups, and give each group a different poem. After discussing the poem, each group member selects a stanza to study. The group then develops a skit that represents...

Using Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Hart Crane's The Bridge as models, class groups first craft their own epic poems for 1900 and, using primary sources, create a multi-media presentation that captures the sights and...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

Students explore the visual, auditory, and verbal worlds offered by iLife applications to create a project that engages all learners and learning styles. They create a class book and CD of nature poems and artwork.

If you're looking to tie rap music into poetry writing, this would be a good presentation to use as you kick off your mini-unit. Learners are given a brief, but descriptive, history of rap music and rap poetry. The slides include...

Here is a complex lesson plan that interweaves the history of the Jim Crow South and the Great Migration with the study of poetry, art, and blues music from the Harlem Renaissance. The plan helps young historians develop a deep...

Have your music lovers examine song lyrics and identify the poetry elements or tools used by a lyricist. They review the song individually before working in groups to discuss what they discovered about the song's narrator or character...

Students experience the different types of poetry in order to classify them. In this poetry lesson, students discover the multiple types of poetry while reading in the library. Ultimately, the students create their own poetry and share...

Students examine the painting, The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan based on a poem by Lord Byron. They compare how Romantic artists and writers made choices about visual elements and language to depict their subjects.

Although not a complete lesson plan, this set of emotionally powerful texts could be used in a variety of lessons. From The New York Times' Learning Network site, the resource includes a poem, an excerpt from a New York Times article and...

Young learners explore nutrition and the food groups in these two mini-lesson plan ideas. First, kindergarteners have a discussion about their health and how different foods contribute to it before making their own personal food pyramid....

Individuals expressed the Harlem Renaissance in diverse forms of art, ranging from poetry to photography to painting. Learners explore pieces using a carefully curated collection from the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Included lessons ask...

Students analyze, discuss and compare sources of inspiration, use of words and imagery, and other differences in writing styles between two featured songwriters. This is an introductory lesson to a creative project unit.

Students complete multiple activities to help them hear sounds, syllables, and spell words with vowel patterns, digraphs, or blends. In this word sounds lesson, students use letter tiles, sort words cards, analyze poems, and play a bingo...

Students read various examples of poetry and create a poetry portfolio. In this poetry writing lesson, students work at their own pace to complete a poetry portfolio with examples of the different poetic forms demonstrated. ...

An engaging biography of "Hoosier" poet James Whitcomb Riley serves as a springboard for study of his unique dialect-based verse. Several activities illuminate differences between spoken vernacular and formal language. Learners record...

The photograph, Nellie and her Italian Soda is viewed and discussed by the class. They are instructed to use the photograph as inspiration to write a poem about non-events, or things that are beautiful in every day life. Pupils use...

Students investigate poetry by incorporating images into the words of a poem.  In this language arts lesson, students discuss poetry writing devices and self expression with their classmates.  Students create a film about the...

Engage your class in art analysis of Indian Look-Alike by Melanie Yazzie. Using this work of art as inspiration, writers compose a poem or short story. After a peer review session, the teacher conveys information about the work of art as...

Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...

In need of a few great ways to teach an arts-enriched lesson on astronomy? This resource contains several interesting ideas that link poetry to the stars in the sky. These suggestions are very simple and could use a teachers touch, but...

Young scholars explore nature by participating in a poetry writing activity. In this forest investigation lesson, students identify images and feelings they experienced while they were in a forest on a class trip. Young scholars identify...

A carefully crafted three-day lesson integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson activates...