Poetry and Songs

Look closely at Twilight in the Wilderness. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

Let’s write a holiday song about order and chaos!

Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!

Look closely at Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

Ready to push kids beyond the boring, old ABAB rhyme scheme and into something a bit more complex?

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Your youngest students will learn to write Japanese Haiku poetry.

Get your students writing some pretty darn impressive poetry based on Japan’s most famous artist.

Poetry and Prose meet at a party. What would they say to each other? How would they feel about each other’s style?

Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.

Context clues lessons can be a disaster. Here, we expose students to a delightful classic packed with nonsense words (“Jabberwocky”) and ask them to decipher the meanings and parts of speech. Then, it’s only natural for students to write their own nonsense poems.

An old photograph. A holiday scene. Pick one object in the picture and write from its point of view.

Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.

Let’s take a classic Christmas poem and remix it to work with another holiday!

Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?

Look closely at Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Look closely at Impression, Sunrise. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

Sure, Dr. Seuss wrote for young students, but can older students analyze his writing and learn to mimic his style? THEN, they can produce Seuss-style poetry about any topic: Ancient China, the electromagnetic spectrum, Pride and Prejudice, and (yes) fraction division!

Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?