Many writers celebrate National Poetry Month by writing a new poem each day. This April, celebrate with your students in this popular and widespread writing challenge and create 30 poems in 30 days! Use this as an opportunity to explore different poetic forms and prompts, letting you and your students release the “inner-editor” voice and allow your poetic creativity to flow throughout the month.
30 Poetry Lessons for 30 Days of Poetry
- “Exploring Disability Justice through Writing” by Jennifer Bartlett
- “Persona Poetry and Mask-Making: Unity for Middle School students” by Jacy Bryla
- “I Remember” by Matthew Burgess (Writing Our Way Through)
- “‘What If’: Trusting Students with Difficult and Challenging Model Texts” by Brittny Ray Crowell
- “Teaching the Tritina and Unraveling Oppression with High School Students” by Trace DePass
- “Two Poetry Prompts to Inspire Immigrant Teens” by Sarah Dohrmann
- “Investigation Poetry” by Sherese Francis (Writing Our Way Through)
- “The Map as Metaphor: Poetic Cartographies in the Virtual Classroom” by Joanna Fuhrman
- “List Poems Inspired by Daily Life” by Melanie M. Goodreaux-Fiedler
- “Collage Poems with ‘The Jumblies‘” by Amina Henry
- “Who Am I? Exploring Stereotypes and Identity Through Poetry” by Javan Howard
- “Origin Story Lesson Plan Using Afro-Latina by Elizabeth Acevedo” by Candice Iloh
- “What’s in a Name? Finding Hidden Pictures in the letters of the Alphabet” by Frank Ingrasciotta (Writing Our Way Through)
- “The Lune Link” by Susan Karwoska
- “Sensory Language” by Jason Leahey
- “Reviving Revision through Storytelling and Poetry” by Caron Levis (Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry)
- “Making Small Moments Big: Teaching Haiku with Sydell Rosenberg” by Erika Luckert
- “Shout Out Poems” by Libby Mislan
- “Rain Can be Anything: Kindergarten Poetry Lesson” by Linda Morel
- “Teaching Poetry as a Part of Real Life” by Naomi Shahib Nye
- “The Walk Poem” by Ron Padgett
- “Math Meets Verse: Counting, Decoding, & Rhythm” by Alice Pencavel
- “Visual Poems” by Maya Pindyck
- “Rosebuds Folded Over in Sleep: Teaching the Sonnets of Ishle Yi Park to High School Students” and “Personification and War Poetry” by Bushra Rehman
- “The Taste of Happiness” by Harriet Riley
- “Odes in Science: A Lesson Plan” by Bertha Rogers
- “Hidden Beauty: Using a Poem by Jane Cortez” by Mark Statman
- “Found Poetry & Accessibility” by Donnie Welch
- “Finding Your Voices: How Jericho Brown, Diana Ross and Janis Joplin Can Inspire Student Writing” by Tiphanie Yanique (Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry)
- “Writing a Dream Poem” by Bill Zavatsky
Additional Resources
- 26 more writing activities to keep writing into May! “Image to Word: An Abecedarian List of Games and Experiments” by Joanna Fuhrman
- “Letters to A Young Writer” by Anne Waldman
- 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month in the Virtual Classroom from Poets.org
- For more Writing Our Way Through poetry lessons for writing at home, visit #WOWT
Amanda Volel is a poet and educator from Queens, New York. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She joined T&W in December 2018 as a teaching artist and currently works as a communications & development associate.
