Inside: Looking for a dynamic way to launch your poetry unit? This differentiated poetry lesson plan is what you a. It provides formative data about your students’ prior knowledge, while asking them to engage in critical writing.
First Impressions and Education
Nothing has a weighty reputation like making a good first impression, which always brings me back to the first day of my first year of teaching.
Trading my college hoodie for a blue dress from The Limited, I stood there a fresh-faced early twenty something, pretending I knew what I was doing teaching 8th graders. I was clueless!
The get to know you activities went well for the first 45 minutes of class, which was when the bell was supposed to ring. However, classes had to wait for students to complete a registration card. Each card was collected and alphabetized. We’re talking one card for each of roughly 1300 middle schoolers!
While admin prepped me for many possible first-day issues, they forgot to mention that 1st period would go on for much longer than the bell schedule. Standing there, feet blistering in my brand new wedges, I looked out at eager students, waiting for me to lead – to make my first impression.
Instead of externally freaking out, like I was on the inside, I grabbed a picture book and improvised a read aloud and class discussion. It worked! They enjoyed it because, according to them, no one had read them a picture book since elementary school. Better yet, out of 6 class periods that first year, my 1st period had the strongest bond throughout the year. First impressions matter.
Introduction to Poetry Lesson Plans
Consider your introduction to poetry lesson plan – it’s pretty make or break with how students will engage throughout the rest of the unit. The poetry lesson plan I’m sharing is my go-to method of starting a poetry unit. I have used it with much success in 6th – 8th grade classrooms, with a diverse group including both students with gifted and special abilities.
The beauty of this lesson is that it engages students in a non-threatening higher level thinking activity, while asking them to assess their prior knowledge. They’re using metacognition, thinking about thinking, to determine how they feel about poetry, and why they feel that way.
The end product provides formative data which you can use to decide how to proceed in your poetry unit. I built in both higher and lower scaffolding, so modify to meet the needs of your students.
Poetry Lesson Plan
Student Objective: I can create figurative language by expressing my opinion about poetry using a metaphor
Classroom Setup & Materials
- Print or write large plus (+) and minus (-) signs. Post one on each side of your classroom. If you have hall space, this works well in an open space.
- 2 post-it notes per student
- Large index cards or half-sheets of paper for exit ticket
- Optional* copy of Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
Poetry Lesson Plan:
- Hook: Read page one of Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. (“I don’t want to because boys don’t write poetry. Girls do.”) Use this as a mentor text to infer/discuss the main characters feelings toward poetry.
- Have students turn and talk with their neighbor about what they know about poetry and how they feel about it.
- Provide each student with 2 post-it notes. On one post-it have them write something they consider to be positive in life and on the other something that they consider negative. To support striving readers, I model by writing “Getting the first piece of birthday cake” as my positive and “Being the last one picked up at a school event” as my negative.
- Past Student Examples:
- For positives: junk food, money, new shoes, family, friends, going to a birthday party etc…
- For negatives: injury, drowning, prison, stubbing a toe, getting a splinter, etc..,
As students finish writing, let them share out and then stick their examples on or around the positive and negative signs hanging around your classroom.
- Next, ask students – “What is your current opinion of poetry? Tell me how you feel by where you stand.” Students will make a shoulder to shoulder line in between the negative and positive signs to represent how they feel about poetry. (- means they despise it and + means they absolutely love it) I remind students that it’s the same concept as a number line.
- Students will share their response. For 100% engagement, pair students up before the conversation. Use the question: Why are you standing where you are? Why do you feel this way about poetry? This discussion often provides valuable formative information, that lets me peek into the attitudes that they approach poetry with.
Direct Teach and Closing Task
- Teach or review the definition of a metaphor – add notes in their writer’s notebook, if they keep one.
- On the index card or half sheet of paper, have students create a metaphor representing how they feel about poetry. They do this by choosing one of the positive or negative examples to complete the stem “Poetry is…”
- Model it by sharing your metaphor: Poetry is getting the first piece of cake at a birthday party.
- For advanced students, extend the metaphor by have them explaining why.
- Poetry is getting the first piece of cake at a birthday party. It’s exciting to get the first piece of cake, and figuring out what a poem means is also exciting. When I see a slice of birthday cake, I want to be the one to taste it. Similarly, when I read a poem, it makes me want to be the first one to figure it out what it means.
- For advanced students, extend the metaphor by have them explaining why.
- Allow students to share their metaphors and reflect on the process of creating a metaphor. For a formal exit ticket, students can respond t o the following stem: Creating a metaphor was ____(challenging/easy)_____ because…
Why This Lesson Works
Engaging students in expressing their opinion about poetry in the form of a metaphor allows them to evaluate their prior knowledge and experiences. Even if they have a negative feeling toward the genre, they will have already written figurative language with this lesson!
It reaches students who don’t appreciate poetry, allowing them to engage in figurative thinking anyways. For example: One of my 6th graders absolutely hated poetry, which he shared during our positive & negative discussion. When I told him that he could write about how much he disliked poetry, he wrote without hesitation.
“Poetry is a prison locking me in. I can’t understand the words, so it makes me feel trapped. The walls are up above my eyes and head, I can’t see out.”
His short answer did two things:
- It got him writing critically (always a goal). Not just critically though, also metaphorically. A student who has written a metaphor has a much deeper grasp on how they work. Kelly Gallagher explains the value of metaphorical writing/thinking in his book, Deeper Reading.
- It reveals that he probably struggles with comprehension issues more than actually hating the genre. This is just enough feedback to guide me how to proceed – teach comprehension poetry strategies, like the ones in this post.
First impressions are everything, so win them over quickly! One time a GT student pointed out that I was tricking them into writing a poem about poetry. He said it was a poem inception, which I took as a great compliment.
The next step in a successful poetry unit is choosing a quality poem. See my favorites in: The 10 Best Poems for Middle School Classrooms.
Looking for poems to use? Sign up for a free poetry sub plan or check out my middle school poetry activity bundle on TPT.
