In this unit, students will be introduced to poetry.  Students will learn about the different types of poetry characteristics through the use of poetry books, prezi presentations, music, and spoken word.

This unit is focused on figurative language, covering common core standards in language, literature for reading, and speaking and listening with the final assessment.  It is designed to be used with a workshop model, where there is some form of opening for brief instruction, partner and/or independent work time, and a closing time for sharing within each lesson.

The 7th grade poetry unit gives an in-depth approach to poetry. Included are worksheets, rubrics, and answers keys where applicable along with CCSS literature examples.

By examining Lincoln's three most famous speeches the Gettysburg Address and the First and Second Inaugural Addresses in addition to a little known fragment on the Constitution, union, and liberty, students trace what these documents say regarding the significance of union to the prospects for American self-government.

There is no one poem that represents the experience of African Americans in the United States, yet the history of racism in this country is seared deeply into the lives of many African Americans. “The Weakness” by Toi Derricotte recounts an experience with racism through the eyes of a young, light-skinned African American girl going shopping with her grandmother in a department store in 1945. The poems in The African American Experience offer a number of perspectives from African American poets that add a rich complexity to students’ perceptions of African American lives.

Having students extract and create meaning out of words is a gift and task.  This gets them working with diction and figurative language then reflecting on the choices they made in their own written creations.

In this lesson, students overcome their fears by using a traditional poem to teach students about alliteration. After reading the book, A My Name Is... by Alice Lyne, students use a variety of print and online resources to brainstorm their own alliterative word lists. They then create a poetry link that uses the traditional poem they have read together as a framework for their own poems.

This activity is a creative response after reading Beowulf.  This has students writing poetry, and it also contains a hands-on artistic component in the instructions.

This activity is a creative response after reading Beowulf.  This has students writing poetry, and it also contains a hands-on artistic component in the instructions. It is a remix of an original lesson by Kinsi King. 

This lesson introduces students to American colonial life and has them compare the daily life and culture of two different colonies in the late 1700s. Students study artifacts of the thirteen original British colonies and write letters between fictitious cousins in Massachusetts and Delaware.

Students will complete a close reading of Ted Kooser’s poem, Abandoned Farmhouse.  Students will use their knowledge about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl to determine the setting and characters in the poem. After analyzing the author’s style, use of figurative language, and structure of the poem, students will write an ORIGINAL POEM in the spirit of Abandoned Farmhouse by using the same syntax.  Using the original poem and a template as a guide, students will compose a poem that reveals who they are through the voice of important objects in their homes.

The purpose of this project is two-fold: first, to encourage students to make the reading of poetry a creative act; and, second, to help students appreciate particular literary devices in their functions as semaphores or interpretive signals. Those devices that are about the imagery of a poem (metaphor, simile, personification, description) can be thought of as magnifying glasses: we see most clearly that upon which the poet focuses our gaze. Similarly, those poetic devices that are about the sound of the poem (alliteration, consonance, enjambment, onomatopoeia, and repetition) can be thought of as volume buttons or amplifiers: we hear most clearly what the poet makes us listen to most attentively.

This lesson concentrates on Anne Frank as a writer. After a look at Anne Frank the adolescent, and a consideration of how the experiences of growing up shaped her composition of the Diary, students explore some of the writing techniques Anne invented for herself and practice those techniques with material drawn from their own lives.

This article lists seven art techniques and four poetry types that can be used to depict and describe the aurora.

Understanding the Patriot attitude toward the British monarchy is helpful in understanding the Founders' reluctance to have a strong executive under the Articles of Confederation as well as their desire to build in checks of executive power under the Constitution.

Learn about the checks and balances system of the three branches of the U.S. government.

Students will read and analyze the poem "The Bells", by Edgar Allan Poe. Students will collaborate with their peers to identify and share examples of literary techniques used by the author.

In this lesson students learn how Birth of a Nation reflected and influenced racial attitudes, and they analyze and evaluate the efforts of the NAACP to prohibit showing of the film.

In this lesson, students will consider the many kinds of communities that exist, and reflect on their own special ties to a community they are a part of. After watching the video for "Sunday Candy," and hearing the poetry of Chicago-based Kevin Coval, students will hold their own poetry slam featuring poems about community.

In this lesson, students will discuss how the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance and Locke's New Negro were exemplified by the poetry of Langston Hughes. Specifically, they will examine how Hughes incorporated the vernacular tradition of the Blues in his work, and identify the literary techniques Hughes employs to make his poetry so vivid.