Acrostic poems are perfect for any topic! A quick tutorial guides learners into writing acrostic poems with the basics and key examples.

If you're teaching your class about the cycle of life and want to include a poetry element, consider this exercise. It provides a link to a Found Poem (a poem created from others' words, but an original idea) that includes words...

Exposing learners to the power of words in poetry is a stimulating way to learn languages. Songs, haikus, rhyming words, and narrative works are all employed in a resource for teaching English as a Second Language.

Encourage the poetic genius in your young creative writers with a poetry workshop. Fix form poems (cinquains acrostic poems, octopoems, hello/goodbye poems) provide a framework and encourage vocabulary development as well as an awareness...

Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....

Class members come together to study Amanda Gorman's poem "New Day's Lyric." After a close reading of the poem, learners watch a video of Gorman reading her poem, and then craft additional lines for the poem where they offer suggestions...

The language of and the perspective of photographs, poems, and official reports differ. After a close reading of two photographs, two poems, and a military report about the Vietnam War, individuals adopt someone's voice or something from...

Seven poems paired with seven original works of art provide learners an opportunity to draw connections between literary and artistic interpretations. Designed to augment a study of the Holocaust, each pair is accompanied by discussion...

Poetry is not just for romance. Teach middle schoolers about soldiers' experiences during World War I with poetry written by the soldiers themselves. The lesson includes a simulation activity, a graphic organizer activity, and a...

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...

Follow poetry instruction with a four-category rubric designed to guide budding poets' writing of free verse poetry. 

It is so important for English language learners to be able to write for a variety of purposes. Specifically written for an ELD class, this activity provides explicit instruction for teaching learners how to write a poem. First, they...

Two sonnets provide seventh graders with examples of Shakespearean sonnets. After discussing the story of the poems and analyzing their rhyme scheme and rhythm, young poets craft a Shakespearian sonnet and share their work with two...

Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" provide seventh graders with examples of odes. After reading and discussing these and other examples, young poets craft an ode and respond to the ode of a...

Examine two of Sor Juana's sonnets in depth. Learners first listen to an audio recording or a reading of the sonnets and then analyze the structure and form, paying attention to elements of the Baroque and el gongorismo. Assess student...

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...

The third lesson of five in an eighth-grade poetry unit has young scholars comparing Shakespearean sonnets with Petrarchan sonnets. To begin, they examine the different structures of the two forms and their different rhyme schemes. After...

Celebrate poetry month all of April with a guide that uses six of Shel Silverstein's most famous books as a basis for the lessons. Discussion questions and writing activities are provided for each of Silverstein's books.

Embark on a journey of writing several different types of poetry. Fifth graders read several examples, and use the examples to model their own writing. Each poem is to be accompanied by a different art visual representation. In the end,...

Help your class create collective poetry following a simple, engaging model from Teaching Tolerance (tolerance.org). Each young poet writes five things on an index card: sayings from others, favorite sound, favorite place, favorite...

A poetry lesson takes a close look at home. Scholars discuss with partners what they are most grateful for at their homes. A timelapse video showcases potato tubers growing. While watching, pupils write down what they notice. Learners...

Timothy Steele's poem, "Toward the Winter Solstice," offers scholars an opportunity to consider what poets and scientists could learn from each other's work. First, learners examine a NASA image of a star-forming region in the Orion...

Phillis Wheatley's poem, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is the focus of a lesson plan that asks readers to consider how the poem is a critique of slavery. Groups comprise a list of words and phrases they notice as well as...

Listening to poems about feeling lonely and feeling like an outsider set the stage for a group activity that focuses on Stevie Smith's "Not Waving But Drowning." Groups examine the three stanzas of Smith's poem separately and identify in...