Performing poetry incorporates oral reading, literature, and the performing arts. This strategy can benefit content area readers, English language learners, or learners with special needs.
Performing Poetry
Great Films and How to Teach Them
Costanzo offers high school and college teachers an updated, expanded edition that contains 80% new material on teaching film, including study guides of 14 new film with relevant ways to engage their students through a medium that students know and love.
Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom
In this practical guide, John Golden makes direct links between film and literary study by addressing reading strategies (e.g., predicting, responding, questioning) and key aspects of textual analysis.
Constructing New Understanding Through Choral Readings of Shakespeare
After reading The Tempest or any other play by William Shakespeare, students work in small groups to plan, compose, and perform a choral reading based on a character or theme.
All's Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare
Students compare attending a performance at The Globe Theater with attending a modern theater production or movie. They then create a commercial for an Elizabethan audience promoting a modern product.
The Ten-Minute Play: Encouraging Original Response to Challenging Texts
Students use both analytical and creative skills to adapt passages from a novel with significant internal dialogue and conflict, such as Toni Morrison's Beloved, into a ten-minute play.
Cover to Cover: Comparing Books to Movies
Students compare and analyze novels and the movies adapted from them. They design new DVD covers and a related insert for the movies, reflecting their response to the movie version.
Ekphrasis: Using Art to Inspire Poetry
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.
Designing Effective Poster Presentations
Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.
The Children's Picture Book Project
In this lesson students evaluate published children's picture storybooks. Students then plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children's picture books.
Love of War in Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story"
Students explore the theme of love of war through texts on camaraderie among soldiers. They then compose a visual collage depicting their beliefs about the relationship between love and war.
Analyzing and Podcasting About Images of Oscar Wilde
Students analyze images of Oscar Wilde used to publicize his 1882 American lecture tour. They then compare a caricature to another researched image, sharing this analysis in a podcast.
BOOKMATCH: Scaffolding Independent Book Selection
This lesson will be turning heads and pages as students learn how to choose appropriate books for independent reading exercises and later evaluate their choices.
Latino Poetry Blog: Blogging as a Forum for Open Discussion
In this lesson, students use blogs to hold discussions about the effect of the factors of culture, history, and environment on Latino poetry.