Let’s see how we can use a classic piece of poetry to enhance a lesson on parts of speech or context clues. This provides exposure to a great work and also increases the complexity of a typical task.
Tagged WithPoetry
What can we do with poetry to push students' understanding to a deeper level?
Poe’s The Raven
The Raven is a great starting point for students’ to learn about Poe. Not only does the poem clearly demonstrate “tone,” but it is a figurative language tour de force. Plus, there are some amazing readings available online!
An Academic Twist on Valentines
Want to have some February fun? Let’s merge the idea of “going together like milk and cookies” with curriculum to create Academic Valentine’s Day cards!
A Holiday-Themed Shakespearean Sonnet
Now we’re going to create our own holiday-themed Shakespearean Sonnet. To add complexity (and help our students get started!), we’ll write from the point of view of a specific holiday decoration, tradition, or character.
Remix Poetry: Christmas To Thanksgiving
Let’s remix a famous Christmas poem, give it a Thanksgiving theme, and teach our students advanced poetry concepts at the same time
Thanksgiving Haikus
This year, I changed one requirement. Students had to compose a haiku as the body of their card. This gave me a chance to introduce a type of poetry that I like to use throughout the year, while still maintaining the purpose of expressing unexpected thankfulness to someone.
Video: Make A Movie Trailer To Analyze Tone
Here’s part of my technology presentation from CAG 2011. In this project, students will develop a movie trailer of a story they have read in class. The purpose is to analyze the tone of the original story and recreate it in a multimedia format.
Shakespeare & Gifted Students
To a young student, Shakespeare is the academic equivalent of Mt. Everest. However, with a little coaching (ok, a lot of coaching), my students are able to dig into the Bard’s words and pull out an understanding of the plot as well as some of his incredible figurative language. I bet yours can too!
Movie Previews and Poems’ Tones
In California, both Third and Sixth grade teachers are required to teach students to recognize elements that contribute to the tone of a written piece. I struggled with this abstract concept before landing on an engaging tool to help express the meaning of tone: movie previews.