• Scaffold instruction and build connections to texts in differentiated classrooms using our customizable Poetry Multi-Leveled Lessons

• Include award-winning poetry titles in your planning and recommendations:
  

  • Notable Poetry and Verse Novels
  • Lee Bennett Hopkins Award

    

• Find inspiration with titles and resources from these curated lists:

  • Poetry Essentials: Selected Books for Children and Teens
  • Colorful Poetry: 22 Diverse Picture Books for Kids
  • Check out titles and resources on these secondary “Got Text Complexity? Poetry Books: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-10, Grades 11-12
    

• Select poets from the Young People’s Poet Laureate list and have each student do an author study. Click through to explore name pronunciations, Meet-the-Author Recordings, books by that author, and more!

• Browse our entire Poetry Collection and use filters to narrow down by grade level, cultural experience, and more!

Connections to Picture Books

• Preview some of the poems in Thanku: Poems of Gratitude using Google Book Preview, then write tricube poems using this activity guide!

• Use the poetic elements chart on page 5 of this activity pack for Wave to explore similes, shape, line breaks, rhythm, and more in any poem.

• Watch this complete video reading of Bubbles....Up!, then have students write poems about their favorite fun activities, using the verses in Bubbles as a model.

• Try turning a poem into a song like the author does in this video reading of "Fifty Ukeleles" from A Hatful of Dragons: And More Than 13.8 Billion Other Funny Poems.

• Rhyme with rhythm using the activity from these teachers' notes for Honey for You, Honey for Me: A First Book of Nursery Rhymes. Watch this video book reading for more fun with rhymes with the author!

• Amuse with alliteration in this playful complete video reading of "The Flippy, Floppy Flappers" from A Hatful of Dragons.

• Find figurative language activities, a poetry assessment, a verb-hunt chart, and other printable activities in this teachers' guide for In the Wild, and hear David Elliott share some of his poems in this video reading.

• Hear from author Suzanne Slade in this Meet-the-Author Recording for Exquisite, then create a Poet-Tree in her Invitation to Imagine activity.

• Perform poems expressively using Reader’s Theater Scripts, such as these three examples:

  • Poems in the Attic
  • Little Cat’s Luck
  • Rutherford B., Who Was He?: Poems about Our Presidents

• Demonstrate rhyme and visual structure with the complete video reading for Room for Everyone. Then try out a Poetry Multi-Leveled Lesson.

Connections to books for older readers

• Create a collage using materials from the classroom or home, then write a poem based on your art form, as described in this guide for Out of Wonder, which features Ekua Holmes’ collages.

• Write haikus using this haiku writing guide from Maria Gianferrari for Whoo-Ku Haiku: A Great Horned Owl Story.

• Learn all about haikus and how to write them using this haiku lesson plan for Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku.

• Examine prose poetry together using ideas in this teaching guide for Ain’t Burned all the Bright, then encourage students to write their own prose poems.

• Find tips for teaching novels in verse in this educators' guide for The Poet X.

• Follow along and write a poem with author Mahogany L. Browne in this "Writing Class" video for Woke: A Young Poet's Call to Justice. Listen to her recite and discuss many of the poems in the text and guide a poetry writing activity.

• Listen to this Meet-the-Author Recording with Kwame Alexander for Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets. Ask each student to choose a poet whose work they admire and write a poem inspired by one of their works or in celebration of that poet.

• Explore audio readings of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and find many activities on this lessons page.

• Gain insight into poet Safia Elhillo’s writing experiences and poetry creation process in this Meet-the-Author Recording for Home Is Not a Country.

• Lead students on this Invitation to Imagine from Naomi Shihab Nye. Discover additional poetry writing prompts in this educator's guide for Nye’s Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems.

• Analyze and reflect deeply with your students about poetry using the “poetry for teaching, healing, and resistance framework” starting on page 5 of the educator's guide for A Seed in the Sun.

• Hear the author of The In-Between detail a pivotal moment in her life that inspired her memoir in verse in this Meet-the-Author Recording. Have students reflect on a moment in their lives that affected them in some way and write their own memoir poems.