Category: Lesson Plans
Innovative lessons plans and ideas for teaching creative writing as well as samples of student writing resulting from the lessons.
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30 Poems in 30 Days
Writing Prompts for National Poetry Month
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Talk to the Hand
A Creative Exercise in Seeing, Writing, and Making Spontaneous Broadsides
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The Map as Metaphor
Poetic Cartographies in the Virtual Classroom
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“What If”
Trusting Students with Difficult and Challenging Model Texts
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Where Does It Take You?
Using the Poetry of Paz, Pacheco, Gutierrez, Blanco, and Deltoro as Models
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Feel
Exploring Emotion in Poetry with Kendrick Lamar
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Writing a Dream Poem
Using dreams to create poetry and visual art.
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Origin Story Lesson Plan
Using “Afro-Latina” by Elizabeth Acevedo to ground students in their multiple identities and lived experiences.
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How Is THAT a Poem?
Winning Over Skeptical Students with E. E. Cummings
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Three Words Away a Poem Awaits
Using typewriters to excite poetry students and to engage them in generative writing and the power of language.
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Odes to Animals
Using a poem by Luo Binwang as a model for writing odes about our favorite animals.
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Collage Poems with “The Jumblies”
Engaging word play, collage, and the poetry of Edward Lear and Sonia Sanchez to create original poetry.
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Jibseria
A Garden Mythology
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Writing the Soul
An activity inspired by the poems of Mary Oliver and Walt Whitman
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Shout Out Poems
Explore the musical and rhythmic elements of spoken poetry with Sekou Sundiata’s “Shout Out.”
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The Taste of Happiness
Teaching Students to Describe Emotions in Poetry
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Hidden Beauty
Using a Poem by Jayne Cortez
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Using Douglass Narrative to Inspire Student Writing
Activities for literary and personal empowerment
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Embrace Recitation
The Value of Reciting Poetry
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The Character Sketch
One of three lesson plans that accompany the essay “The Advanced Class.”
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The Place-Map Assignment
One of three lesson plans that accompany the essay “The Advanced Class.”
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The Photography Assignment
One of three lesson plans that accompany the essay “The Advanced Class.”
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Reading Texts as a Prelude to Analysis
Using analytical writing to explore a reading experiences on the page and on the screen.
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Dear America
Free write