Teacher's Corner
Tanka
The Tanka, another fix from of Japanese poetry, is featured in the final exercise in a 10-part series of poetry writing activities.
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Poetic Elements Are Fun!
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...
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Pictures in Words: Poems of Tennyson and Noyes
Students examine how Tennyson and Noyes use words to paint vivid pictures. They read and analyze two poems, complete an online scavenger hunt, complete a worksheet, and write examples of alliteration, personification, metaphor, simile,...
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A Simile and Metaphor Lesson
Students use their knowledge of similes and metaphors to analyze poetry. In this poetry and language lesson, students read examples of similes and metaphors and write their own examples that describe their city, television, or an era in...
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Latino Literature: Poetry
Under construction, this lesson focuses on Canto Familia, a collection of poetry about Gary Soto's experiences growing up in California's Imperial Valley. Representative of the experiences of many Latinos, the poems also address themes...
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Poetry Writing Practice
In this poetry writing worksheet, students identify the topic, similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, rhyme scheme, and alliteration in a poem. Students fill out this information in a given diagram.
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Poetry: Basic Elements of a Poem
People who pen poetry positively need to know basic tenets and terms of poetry, like alliteration and consonance, for example. These and other terms are define and illustrated. Then viewers are given an object and asked to craft a...
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Poetry Analysis Lesson and Rubric
Analyzing poetry can be done using a variety of techniques that tap into student's prior knowledge.
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"How to Eat a Poem"
Eighth graders write a poem showing what they know about metaphors, and non-literal language to express ideas, convey meaning, and create images after they read Eve Merriam's "How to Eat a Poem".
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Lots of Lessons from Aesop
Aesop’s Fables offer young learners an opportunity to study figurative language. After reviewing theme, simile, alliteration, and metaphor, model for your pupils how to identify examples of these devices in the fable. Class members then...
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Poetry Group Activity
In this Romeo and Juliet learning exercise, students complete a group project by creating a poem on an assigned topic relating to themes found in Romeo and Juliet.
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Similes and Metaphors
Middle schoolers explore similes and metaphors. They discuss and define similes and metaphors, identify the similes and metaphors in two poems, and create three original examples of each.
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Poetry Scrap Book
After your poets have compiled several written poems into a scrap-book, use this grading scale to explain how they'll be graded. The only guiding explanation of the assignment explains that they need to use two of the five literary...
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Math in Literature and Life
Pupils read poems, read phrases, and create a poster for what math is and relate it back to literature. They also discuss the impact math has had on literature.
National Humanities Center
Teaching Emily Dickinson: A Common Core Close Reading Seminar
Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...
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Poetry
What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor? Third graders read a poem as a class and chart all of the similes and metaphors they hear. They then discuss the differences between each literary device as well as what is being...
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Similes in Literature: Definition and Examples
Be as romantic as a poetic. Appear as clever as Einstein. Wow others with your powers of observation by using similes to point out the similar aspects in two different things. This short video focuses on similes found in Shakespeare and...
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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...
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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...
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Parrot in the Oven: Instructional Routine
After reading "The Bullet," a particularly intense chapter in Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members listen to the Spanish and the English versions of "Dimelo" by Enrique Iglesias. They then discuss how the...
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Writing Organizers
Eight graphic organizers to choose from? That's right! Each of these organizers relates to writing or reading. From narrowing a writing topic, to responding to literature, to planning a writing project, you'll find many purposes for...
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Expressing Our Thoughts Through Poetry
Students create a poem on about spring. They read final version of their poem chorally. They write reflections of their experience in creating the poem.
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Musical Poetry
High schoolers analyze lyrics of their favorite songs as examples of alliteration, metaphor, Onomatopoeia, personification, rhyme, and simile to determine the purpose of these devices in poetry. They use their analysis to create a...
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Can You Figure Language?
Eighth graders study similes and metaphors and how to explain and create them. After a lecture/demo, 8th graders access websites and worksheets imbedded in this plan to create their own writing.