Poetry slams!

Rap and spoken word are some of the greatest forms of poetry being written today. Students who proclaim that they hate poetry might change their minds when they realize that any words with a rhythm can be called poetry! Here is an example of one of these types of poems.

Note: There is significant swearing in this video; play with discretion. I think that sometimes swearing in literature and poetry makes a big impact that other words can't, but you have to make sure that your students understand why the poet chose the words they did and how the tone of the language contributes to the message in the poem.

It is so important that students understand the wide range of poetry - it's not just Robert Frost and Shakespeare! I think that students can really relate to poems like the ones in these videos because they are written with such raw emotion about themes that show up in everyone's lives.

Please have a poetry slam of some sort in your classroom; students can write their own poems, or they can bring in poems and learn about the art of performing them for an audience. You may be surprised by what some of your students come up with!

Poetry terms

There are two lists of poetry terms that I found that complement each other.

Although it is important for students to learn the definitions of these terms so that they will know what their teacher is referring to in future classes, it is not much fun to just memorize the definitions without applying them.

One way that I had my students apply the terms was by having them choose a poem from a list and present it to the class with two or three classmates, highlighting not just the meaning and rhythm of the poem, but the literary devices by which the poet achieved these effects. For the final test, I had the students analyze a poem for several things we had discussed in class, including labeling the literary devices they saw in the peom. In another section of the test, I gave them three more poems to read, a list of poetry terms, and a chart with three columns. They had to choose five terms from the box to write in the first column, write a short definition of each of the terms in the middle, column, and list an example of that term from one of the three poems in the third column.

Carl Sandburg!

Carl Sandburg

"Grass" is a nice short poem with a lot of opportunities for discussion. You could ask students what the message of the poem is and then have a mini-debate about what Sandburg was trying to say through the poem. (Two possible themes are the grass telling people to forget about the past and let the pain fade away, or the grass could be subtly accusing people of letting time erase memories and lessons that deserve to be remembered.)

Other ways to use Sandburg poems:

"Fog" can be used to introduce the imagist poets.

"Cool Tombs" can be used to discuss assonance and word choice.

"Chicago" can be used as a prompt for students to write autobiographical poems and to show that a poem doesn't have to be about an abstract object to be insightful.

Video footage of Chicago as the poem is being read:

Fixed Form Poems

The most common fixed poetry forms are the epic, the ode, the ballad, the sonnet, villanelle, and haiku. Definitions and examples of these forms can be found here.

Billy Collins wrote a hilarious poem in "paradelle" form (a form he made up to make fun of other fixed forms). The poem, "Paradelle for Susan" and its explanation and impact are a fun introduction to the more complicated forms and the idea of a fixed form in general.

Fixed form poems can give younger students or students just getting started with poetry the guidelines they need to start writing, and the more challenging forms can help even the most experienced poets experiment with the rules and constraints that fixed poems provide.

Maya Angelou!

Maya Angelou

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

This is a shortened video version of "Still I Rise":

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is my favorite poem by Maya Angelou. It is a wonderful poem about rising up under oppression and keeping your spirit alive - a great message for everyone to keep in mind. It also has amazing rhythm.

Poetry writing activities:

1. Compare Angelou's poem "Phenomenal Woman" to Lauryn Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" or another song with the theme of pride in your identity.

2. Any of the ideas listed under "Evaluation" on this Web site would be fun.

Using poetry to teach figurative language

Figurative language refers to similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeias, hyperboles, and idioms. There is so much figurative language in poetry, and it is important to teach students how much word choice matters in literature. Poets spend a lot of time deciding what they are going to say and the words and comparisons that they are going to use, and often using figurative language enables them to create very interesting ideas.

This lesson plan uses poems from Frost, cummings, Wordsworth, and Derricotte to teach similes.


When I taught similes and metaphors to my 6th graders, I used "Flint" by Christina Rossetti and "Dreams" by Langston Hughes. (These two poems are very short, and therefore very useful in a lesson.) I had the students close their eyes while I read the poems aloud, and then we talked about how using figurative language helps you to see things and make connections that you wouldn't think of without the comparison.

Billy Collins!

Billy Collins

Billy Collins is amazing because he is a contemporary poet and writes poems that nearly everyone can understand and identify with. I like the idea of using Billy Collins' poems at the beginning of a poetry unit because then students won't see poetry as so complicated or indecipherable.

My Fav Five Billy Collins poems:
"The Lanyard" because it hints at how little we really appreciate our parents
"Litany" because it makes fun of cheesy love metaphors
"I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version Of 'Three Blind Mice'" because it's a funny poem
"Embrace" because it's kind of funny and kind of terrifying
"Flames" because it has a surprise ending


There are millions of videos of poems that can add a little variation to your lessons, like this one of Collins' poem "Forgetfulness." Just make sure that YouTube isn't blocked on the computer at your school. :)

Introduction to Poetry

Perhaps the best place to start is with a poem by Billy Collins called "Introduction to Poetry." I feel like so many students expect teachers to tell them the "real meaning" of a poem or that it is their job to find symbols in the poem and figure out what they stand for, instead of just enjoying the poem and noticing how it makes them feel.

When I taught poetry during student teaching, I found that it helped the students to talk first about all the different things that we can analyze about poems - it's not just about rhyme or alliteration! There are lots of checklists on the Web (like this one) that you can print out or modify and then give to your students. Part of the final test for one of my poetry units was giving my students a poem and having them comment on each of the elements on the checklist as they applied to the given poem.



It is extremely important for someone to read the poems aloud before you discuss them in class, and one of the most amazing ways I found to do this is to play recordings of the poets we were studying reading their own poems. The book Poetry Speaks has recordings from many different poets from as far back as Tennyson.