Through a study of Langston Hughes' poetry, students connect his writing to his place in history.

Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!: Everywhere you turn, you find exciting sounds. Students use these sounds to write their own poems based on Dr. Seuss's "Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?"

Introduce gerunds and review nouns, adjectives, and verbs through engaging read-alouds; then apply these concepts through collaborative word-sorting and poetry-writing activities.

Students shape up their reading, writing, and listening skills in this lesson by creating original diamante, acrostic, and shape poems about science.

In this lesson, students explore ekphrasis--writing inspired by art. Students find pieces of art that inspire them and compose a booklet of poems about the pieces they have chosen.

In this interactive lesson, discover how literary techniques like figurative language, imagery, and symbolism contribute to the overall meaning of a poem. Explore how a poet establishes and builds on a theme. Learn how to tell the difference between tone and mood. Through a close reading of Maya Angelou’s famous poem “Caged Bird” (1983), practice unpacking the language of poetry while learning about some of the various tools a writer can utilize when writing a poem.

This student-directed lesson can be completed online. Students will require a login if the instructor desires that they save their work to the platform. You will find detailed instructions on how to set up and manage accounts, class rosters, and assignments in the Help section of the interactive lesson plan.

Emily Dickinson's poetry often reveals a child-like fascination with the natural world. She writes perceptively of butterflies, birds, and bats and uses lucid metaphors to describe the sky and the sea.

Students research engineering careers and create poetry to understand the vocabulary of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

Nikki Giovanni's poem 'The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.' is paired with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, taking students on a quest through time to the Civil Rights movement.

This lesson plan is the third in the "Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community" series. It provides a video of the United State Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, reading the poem "Every Day We Get More Illegal" and a companion lesson with a sequence of activities for use with secondary students before, during, and after reading to help them enter and experience the poem.

Through haiku, students learn to slow down and become mindful of their natural surroundings, enabling them to capture experiences vividly through description. In this unit, students read and listen to examples of haiku, and learn about the history and structure behind this Japanese poetic form. They engage in both outdoor and classroom activities that encourage mindfulness and the exploration of sensory imagery. After writing, illustrating, and pairing their haiku with instrumental music, students collaborate with classmates in creating movements to their poems. The final project is a student compilation of choreographed haiku performances put to movement and music.

Students use art and poetry to explore and understand major characteristics of the Romantic period.

Students read an example of allegory, review literary concepts, complete literary elements maps and plot diagrams, create a pictorial allegory, and write diamante poems related to the theme of change.

See the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial wall in Washington D.C. through the eyes of war veteran and contemporary poet Yusef Komunyakaa. In this video segment from Poetry Everywhere, Komunyakaa reads his poem Facing It.

This lesson plan is the second in the "Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community" series. It provides a video of the poet Claudia Rankine reading the poem "from Citizen, VI [On the train the woman standing]" and a companion lesson with a sequence of activities for use with secondary students before, during, and after reading to help them enter and experience the poem.

Students read "The Jolly Postman", in which a postman delivers letters to storybook characters. They explore different types of mail and categorize letters from the book and their own mail. Children find favorite words, phrases, and sentences from familiar stories. Working together, they combine their words and phrases to create a poem. The poem is then shared as performance poetry.

This lesson plan is the fifth in the "Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community" series. It provides an audio recording of the poet, Minnie Bruce Pratt, reading the poem "The Great Migration." The companion lesson contains a sequence of activities for use with secondary students before, during, and after reading to help them enter and experience the poem.

Students research, evaluate, and synthesize information about the Harlem Renaissance from varied resources, create an exhibit, and highlight connections across disciplines (i.e., art, music, and poetry) using a Venn diagram.

An Introduction to the Humanities

Short Description:
This multimedia reader examines how people use a humanities lens to make sense of what they experience, as well as share their experiences with the rest of the world. The information is presented using a pedagogical approach called reverse teaching, which introduces artifacts in their historical, social, political, personal, and other contexts. Along with the narrative, questions for creative and critical thinking prompt the reader to practice self-exploration.

Word Count: 36397

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Students will learn about the impact of enjambment in Gwendolyn Brooks' short but far-reaching poem "We Real Cool." One element of this lesson plan that is bound to draw students in is a compelling video of working-class Bostonian John Ulrich reciting the poem.