Students research the items listed in the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, noting their historical relevance, and then document their findings using an online chart.
The History Behind Song Lyrics
Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance
Students participate in shared reading, choral reading, and readers theater, using books by Bill Martin, Jr. Repeated readings and literary performances help students with their reading accuracy, expression, and rate.
Modeling Reading and Analysis Processes with the Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Explore reading strategies using Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and other works. Students read Poe's works in both large- and small-group readings then conclude with a variety of projects.
Creating Classroom Community by Crafting Themed Poetry Collections
Students create poetry collections with the theme of "getting to know each other." They study and then write a variety of forms of poetry to include in their collections.
Introducing the Venn Diagram in the Kindergarten Classroom
In this lesson, kindergarten students manipulate hula hoops and real objects, as they use Venn diagrams to problem solve, explore, and record information to share with others.
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.
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.
Acrostic Poems: All About Me and My Favorite Things
Students create acrostic poems using their names and the names of things that are important to them.
Renaissance Humanism in Hamlet and The Birth of Venus
After reading Shakespeare's Hamlet, students identify, analyze, and explain how elements in Botticelli's painting Birth of Venus and examples from the play illustrate the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism.
Writing Poetry with Rebus and Rhyme
This lesson encourages students to use rhyming words to write rebus poetry modeled on rebus books, which substitute pictures for the words that young students cannot yet identify or decode.
Unlocking the Underlying Symbolism and Themes of a Dramatic Work
This lesson plan invites students to consider characters from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Students explore a selected character and write poems about objects associated with that character.
Childhood Remembrances: Life and Art Intersect in Nikki Giovanni's "Nikki-Rosa"
Students explore what Carol Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect" by reading Nikki Giovanni's poem, "Nikki-Rosa," and then writing about childhood memories of their own.
Exploring the Power of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words through Diamante Poetry
Students explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Is a Sentence a Poem?
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.
Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics
Tap students' desires to doodle and draw by having them create a Graffiti Wall, using graphics to discuss a piece of literature that has been read by the whole class.
Varying Views of America
Students work together to analyze three poems about America with varying points of view.
Doodle Splash: Using Graphics to Discuss Literature
Students keep a doodle journal while reading short stories by a common author. In small groups, students then combine their doodles into a graphic representation of the text.
Locating Purpose in Allusion through Art and Poetry
Through this lesson, students will learn how to use the literary term "allusion" in discussing how and why authors and artists draw on and transform subject material.
Making History Come Alive Through Poetry and Song
Students compare the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald with the song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," then create their own poetry about a historical event.
Talking Poetry with Blabberize
Students will be motivated to share their poetry through an online tool the features recording and animation.