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April 01
April is National Poetry Month!
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| Grades | K – 12 |
| Calendar Activity Type | Holiday & School Celebration |
Each year the month of April is set aside as National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate poets and their craft. Various events are held throughout the month by the Academy of American Poets and other poetry organizations.
In honor of National Poetry Month, introduce your students to a variety of poetic forms. Assign one or two students each day as "poet of the day" for the month of April. Then provide students with several models for creating different forms of poetry. You might use Theme Poems, Acrostic Poems, Diamante Poems, or Instant Poetry Forms to do this.
Have each student select one form of poetry and write an original poem, which he or she can also illustrate. On their assigned days, have students read their poetry out loud to the class.
- National Poetry Month
This website from the Academy of American Poets includes information on the history of National Poetry Month. Find out what happens during National Poetry Month on the frequently asked questions page.
- The Poetry Learning Lab from the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Learning Lab is a great source of knowledge, including a glossary of poetry terms, links to public domain poems, and inspiring essays on poetry from writers and educators.
- Writing With Writers: Poetry
Scholastic offers this poetry resource for grades 1–8. There are tips from authors of children's poetry, a teacher's guide, step-by-step workshops, and more.
- Favorite Poem Project
The Favorite Poem Project, cosponsored by Boston College and the Library of Congress, is dedicated to celebrating, documenting, and encouraging poetry's role in Americans' lives. Watch or listen to citizens read poems they love.
| Lesson Plans | Student Interactives | Mobile Apps | Other Calendar Activities | Professional Development | Parent & Afterschool Resources |
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Working in small groups, students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Introduce gerunds and review nouns, adjectives, and verbs through engaging read-alouds; then apply these concepts through collaborative word-sorting and poetry-writing activities.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Letter Poems Deliver: Experimenting with Line Breaks in Poetry Writing
Students explore letter poems and experiment with writing letters as poems, using the placement of line breaks to enhance rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Theme Poems: Writing Extraordinary Poems About Ordinary Objects
Students select a familiar object online, build a bank of words related to the object, and write theme poems that are printed and displayed in class.
Grades 4 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Lonely as a Cloud: Using Poetry to Understand Similes
Students identify similes in poetry and gain experience in using similes as a poetic device in their own work.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Color Poems—Using the Five Senses to Guide Prewriting
Students use their five senses as a prewriting tool to guide their poetry writing as they compose free-form poems using imagery to describe a color.
Grades 7 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Unit
Crossing Boundaries Through Bilingual, Spoken-Word Poetry
Students explore the idea of “crossing boundaries” through bilingual, spoken-word poetry, culminating in a poetry slam at school or in the community.
Grades 1 – 3 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Theme Poems: Using the Five Senses
Students write theme poems in a flash using the picture book Flicker Flash by Joan Bransfield Graham and the online, interactive Theme Poems tool.
Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Poetry Portfolios: Using Poetry to Teach Reading
Teach your students about sentence structure, rhyming words, sight words, vocabulary, and print concepts using a weekly poem.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
What is Poetry? Contrasting Poetry and Prose
Students often find poetry frustrating and meaningless. By helping students think critically about the differences between poetry and prose, this introduction sets the stage for different strategies for comprehending poetic texts.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech
Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Using Classic Poetry to Challenge and Enrich Students' Writing
This lesson sets poetry in motion when students experiment with poetic styles to improve their writing skills and enhance their understanding of poetry.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Minilesson
Students use their own poetry to analyze syntax, imagery, and meaning in a one-sentence poem by a canonical author to decide what makes it a poem.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Unit
Compiling Poetry Collections and a Working Definition of Poetry
This unit introduces students to a variety of poetic forms and elements, as they compile their own collections of poetry.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Students' groans about studying poetry may disappear with this lesson in which students read poetry from various writers and use these poems to examine the sounds and sense of language.
