EDUC 2220- Educational Technology Lesson Plan Template

Introduction to Poetry, 7th grade

Susanne Josephsen
Middle Childhood ELA

Common Core Standards:

None of the links are working for me. I will have to edit this portion before next week.

Lesson Summary:
The goal is to promote positive attitude toward poetry in order to teach students how to read, understand, and
write their own poetry. Students will be able to recognize poetry in their out-of-school experience and

Estimated Duration:

Intro will last five 50 minute class periods over one week, not including pre-assessment done the Friday before.
Deeper work on construction, figurative language, and social impact in two weeks following. Entire unit could
culminate in a poetry night parents and friends could attend.

Commentary:

By including open-ended, fun, and unexpected content, students will hopefully find poetry more accessible and
more prevalent and significant to their everyday culture. Students will achieve a greater understanding of words
and meaning by playing with them in lower-stakes poetry workshops.

Instructional Procedures:

Day 1:

15 min: What is poetry? Prezi with many videos. Lecture with discussion

Introduce portfolio, five station instructions, think-tac-toe.

Portfolio is a folder in which students keep work in progress, both in class and think-tac-toe homework.
Each Station will have instructions
Think-Tac-Toe: homework with choice, must complete three assignments over the week in a traditionally
acceptable tic-tac-toe line.

Station 1: Roll of the Dice poetry:

Station 2: Blackout poem -
Station 3:
Station 4: Newspaper poem -
Station 5: Five senses poetry -

Day 2:

10 min: Prezi lecture and discussion on

20 minutes: Students enter poetry stations.

Day 3:

10 minutes: Prezi lecture and discussion on

30 minutes: Students enter poetry workshops.

10 minutes: Randomly selected students (from popsicle stick jar for example) are offered chance to read own
poem or share something they have learned.

Day 4:

10 minutes:

30 minutes: Poetry workshops

10 minutes: Randomly selected students (from popsicle stick jar for example) are offered chance to read own
poem or share something they have learned.

Day 5

30 minutes: Poetry stations.

10 minutes: Randomly selected students (from popsicle stick jar for example) are offered chance to read own
poem or share something they have learned.
10 min: Wrap up post-poll, use same format as pre-assessment.

Pre-Assessment:
Depending on maturity of kids: dry erase boards or tech app to put answers on screen (Twitter or Google doc at
the very least): What five words come to mind when you think of poetry?

Scoring Guidelines:
Pre-assessment #1: assessed by observation. Do students have limited definitions for poetry, do they have
pre-existing discouragement/negative feelings? Are they motivated to engage or do we need to spend
some extra time on making it relevant?

Pre-assessment #2 :

Post-Assessment:

Post-Assessment #1 : Products from writing workshop: selection of best poem and reason why, 2 peer editing
sheets.
Post-Assessment #2 : Participating in class poetry slam, writing personal reflection about it in class

Scoring Guidelines:
At least five poems in portfolio
Definitions of poetry terms and examples of each
Work chosen from the Think-Tac-Toe
Personal reflection, took time to consider

Differentiated Instructional Support

Poetry stations in class and think-tac-toe for homework have some differentiation built-in.

Above target students : Students comfortable and familiar with poetry can research a new style and try to write.
For example, student who writes traditional stanzas with rhyme could try non-rhyming free form, or maybe
spoken word and perform for the class.

Below target students : Low-vocab or word-shy students can use magnetic poetry or found word poems. Can
focus on one feature of poetry at a time. Will not be embarrassed since all students will

Extension
Provide a link to a website where students could go to learn more about the standards you are addressing in your
lesson.
Briefly explain what the site is and how students could benefit from using it.

Homework Options and Home Connections

Think-Tac-Toe ideas:
Workshop re-writes from class
Share piece with someone from home
Take twenty words from your first page of social media, write poem.
Ask friend or family member about favorite poem/a poem they've read
Find piece of poetry on Youtube and critique it
Illustrate poem using Storybird or Prezi
Where was an unexpected place you found poetry?

Interdisciplinary Connections
Historical connections: research favorite poet's cultural time and space. What was happening around him or her
that influenced writing? How did his or her writing have a social impact?
How could we use art to make a social or political impact in our community? Is there a relevant event we
could visit as a class in our city?

Materials and Resources:

For teachers I will need a smartboard or projector, computer and the internet. I will want to begin each
class with a prezi lecture to introduce new writing content and vocabulary and show at
least one multimedia presentation.

For students Computer access is necessary for the multimedia components. Of course, for students
who do not have this access will have other options for homework.

Key Vocabulary
Basic poetry terms: Poetry, rhythm, figurative language, line, stanza, imagery, free verse, lyric poem, narrative
poem, rhyme, refrain, symbolism, personification
Additional Notes

I wanted to challenge myself since teaching poetry is my least favorite kind of ELA instruction.

I am clearly not finished because I got very sick this weekend and I am in the throes of grad school finals at my
other college. I understand this may well lose me points and I accept that. I want to clean things up by next
Tuesday for the second part of this assignment. Thank you.