Turn Your Students Into Well-Versed Poets

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Education World offers more than 20 poetry lesson plans to help teachers integrate poetry into their classrooms and develop "well-versed" students. Stage a poetry slam for profit, find the funniest poems around, write synonym poems, more! Included: Links to poetry sites for kids and teachers, rubrics for grading poetry, and sites that publish student poetry!

Each April, America celebrates National Poetry Month. To help you observe National Poetry Month, Education World presents five lessons for exploring poetry in the classroom. These fun activities will energize students and promote an appreciation for poetry of all kinds.

After checking out this week's featured lessons, scroll down the page for links to bonus lessons!

FIVE LESSONS FOR
INTEGRATING POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM

Click any headline below for a complete teaching resource. (Approximate grade levels for each activity appear in parentheses.)

Diamond Poems Across the Curriculum
Build vocabulary skills, teach parts of speech, and have fun with diamond poems. (Grades 3-12)

P Is for Poetry
Create a simple rhyming ABC book with young children or foreign language students. Illustrate the book by hand or with a software drawing program. (Grades K-12)

A Laugh and a Half: Students Make Funny-Poem Mobiles
Students find their favorite funny poems -- and write their own -- to hang from a smile-mobile. Student work sheet provided. (Grades K-8)

Stage a Poetry Slam!
Hold a classroom or school-wide poetry slam. A slam can be held as a fund-raising activity, a parents night event, or just for fun! (Grades 3-12)

Synonym Poetry
Students choose a word -- any word -- think about what it means to them, and build synonym poems around their words! (Grades 3-12)

BONUS LESSONS

While surfing the Net looking for the best poetry sites for kids, we found lots of terrific lesson plans to help teachers integrate poetry across the grades.

• Fooling With Words With Bill Moyers (Grades 9-12)
• Virtual Poetry (Grades 1-5)
• Enhancing a Poetry Unit with American Memory (Grades 6-11)
• Make a Poetry Quilt (Grades K-3)
• Poetry Writing With Jack Prelutsky (Grades 2-5)
• Performance Poetry (Grades 6-12)
• Writing I Spy Riddle Rhymes With Jean Marzollo (Grades 1-6)
• Shel Silverstein's Classroom Poetry Kit (Grades K-8)

   

ADDITIONAL POETRY RESOURCES

• Lesson Plans from the Academy of American Poets
• Billy Collins' Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools
• Poetry Online: Search By Poet, Title, Timeline, Keyword
• Bringing Poetry to the Classroom, Grades K-5

POETRY RUBRICS

• Poetry Rubric
• Performance Poetry Rubric
• Poetry Rubric

PUBLISH YOUR STUDENTS' POEMS ONLINE

• Storybird
• Figment

Article by Gary Hopkins
Education World®
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