In this video [3:17] from American Masters: The Day Carl Sandburg Died, students learn about Carl Sandburg and his early days as a "poet of the people." As a young man, Sandburg worked as an organizer for the Social-Democratic Party of Wisconsin. This work helped to fuel his poetry, which led him to focus on issues relevant to working people and the poor. The poems "Masses" and "Mill-Doors" are highlighted; teacher materials are provided.

Shadows, shadows, everywhere! In this lesson, students read fiction, informational text, and poetry about shadows to extend their knowledge of the concept before casting their own shadow poetry.

Students explore what Carol Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect" by reading Nikki Giovanni's poem, "Nikki-Rosa," and then writing about childhood memories of their own.

Students investigate the effects of word choice in Robert Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" to construct a more sophisticated understanding of speaker, subject, and tone.

Students select what they believe to be the most important word in a text that they have read and justify their choice using examples from the text.

This video presents a "poetic concert" featuring the words of three African-American writers: Sojourner Truth, Naomi Long Madgett, and Nikki Giovanni. Included are teaching tips and additional background information. [8:10]

Students use their five senses as a prewriting tool to guide their poetry writing as they compose free-form poems using imagery to describe a color.

Pat Mora's poem "Echoes" demonstrates that our senses are powerful tools for literary analysis and comprehension as students use their senses to discover new ways to read and write.

Coverage of many aspects of Mongol history, from A.D. 1000-1500, including conquests and important figures in Mongol history

This modular ELA collection for grades 6–12 invites students to explore the complexity of identity and develop a sense of agency as they reflect on what it means to grow up in the world today.

The collection includes:
- Back to School Toolkit
- Introductory lesson
- Multi-genre text sets
- Unit Guide for teaching Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming
- Unit Planning Guide for developing a unit on a book of your choice
- Book Club Guide
- Whole School Read Planning Guide

The resources in this collection help you diversify the range of stories that students read and combine reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills with ethical and empathic reflection.

This unit introduces students to a variety of poetic forms and elements, as they compile their own collections of poetry.

Wordsworth was a defining member of the English Romantic Movement. This is the starting point for selecting poems chronologically by title index or alphabetically by first line.

Students use themed graphic organizers to compose cinquain poems on topics common in the early elementary classroom.

Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.

Students write poems using rhyme and meter as they come to understand the mechanical concept of rhythm, based on the principle of oscillation, in a broader biological and cultural context, as seen in dance and sports, poetry and other literary forms, and communication in general. Note: The literacy activities for the Mechanics unit are based on physical themes that have broad application to our experience in the world — concepts of rhythm, balance, spin, gravity, levity, inertia, momentum, friction, stress and tension.

Includes Countee Cullen's early life, his works and contains links to his contemporaries.

A very comprehensive site that includes a biographical sketch, several texts of Borges'poems, short stories and essays and, critical essays on his works.

Students explore the idea of ńcrossing boundariesî through bilingual, spoken-word poetry, culminating in a poetry slam at school or in the community.

Students learn about personification by reading and discussing poems and then brainstorm nouns and verbs to create personification in their own poems.