Students identify similes in poetry and gain experience in using similes as a poetic device in their own work.
Lonely as a Cloud: Using Poetry to Understand Similes
A Directed Listening-Thinking Activity for "The Tell-Tale Heart"
What's that sound? Students participate in a Directed ListeningThinking Activity (DLTA) using "The Tell-Tale Heart," make predictions, and respond in the form of an acrostic poem or comic strip.
The Magnetism of Language: Parts of Speech, Poetry, and Word Play
What wonderful ways words work! The parts of speech are the highlight of this lesson in which students identify parts of speech in a nonsensical poem and then create their own wild and wacky rhymes.
Slipping, Sliding, Tumbling: Reinforcing Cause and Effect Through Diamante Poems
Writing, revising, and publishing are just a few of the tasks students will complete in order to take their cause-and-effect diamante poems from an idea to a reality.
The Reading Performance: Understanding Fluency Through Oral Interpretation
Students discuss prosody, gain a new appreciation for literature intended for oral performance, and participate in activities that instill the value of technology in shaping their appreciation of literature.
Word Mover
Word Mover allows children and teens to create "found poetry" by choosing from word banks and existing famous works; additionally, users can add new words to create a piece of poetry by moving/manipulating the text.
Author Jacqueline Woodson was born today.
Students read the poem "February 12, 1963" and write a poem to commemorate their own birthday.
Today is World Read Aloud Day.
Students celebrate the power of words by reading aloud to their classmates and spreading the word of global literacy to their friends and family.
Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in 1943.
Using the poem "My First Memory (of Librarians)," students connect memory, their senses, and the language of poetry.
Gwendolyn Brooks published Bronzeville Boys and Girls in 1956.
After students have read and discussed several poems from Brooks' collection, they create a poetry anthology for their own family, neighborhood, or classroom.
Poet and author Pat Mora was born on this day in 1942.
Students study and write extended metaphors through the use of Pat Mora's book.
Seamus Heaney was born on this day in 1939.
Students focus on the figurative language in Heaney's poem, "Digging," and discuss the speaker's attitude, and how metaphor, simile, and image contribute to the poem.
Valentine's Day is today!
Students find examples of figurative language and write an original example of each device, illustrate, and share them with the class.
Poet Robert Burns was born in 1759.
Students read examples of traditional Scottish ballads and use this information to write and perform their own ballads.
Langston Hughes was born in 1902.
Students examine the poem "Dreams" and identify metaphors in each sentence. Groups of students then compose poems with metaphors for dreams.
Poe's "The Raven" was published in 1845.
As Poe's "The Raven" is read aloud, students note their reactions and discuss the changes or development of their first impressions as the poem continues.
Today is Walt Whitman's birthday.
Students write and illustrate their own children's stories using the text from a Walt Whitman poem.
Science writer Seymour Simon was born in 1931.
Students select and explore a scientific topic in detail using Simon's nonfiction science books and then use what they learn to write original poetry on the topic.
Children's author Patricia Polacco was born in 1944.
Students share family stories of their own by writing original poems and reviewing parts of speech using the Diamante Poems tool.
Newbery Medal winner Christopher Paul Curtis was born in 1953.
Students brainstorm a list of civil rights-related issues and use the Acrostic Poems interactive to create poems.