7 Diverse & Powerful Poems to Teach Tone

Looking for FRESH and diverse poems to teach tone? Teacher friends, I’ve rounded up a good one today! Below, I have 7 poems to teach tone that are not typically taught in the mainstream ELA curricula (but should be!). They are all written from diverse authors and publishing dates range from 1995 to 2022. Want to know the best part? These poems are totally teacher-approved through CommonLit, and you can access them for free. You don’t need a district-paid account to access the poems, guiding questions, and other basic features. 7 Poems to Teach Tone Before you dive in, using daily poetry bell ringers and/or an introductory video like this one might strengthen your student’s understanding of tone analysis in poetry. You can also use the engaging activities in this stellar poetry bundle to introduce,

Carina Assayed October 3, 2023

Two people are standing side by side with their backs facing the viewer. The person on the left has an inclusive Pride flag draped over their shoulders while the person on the right has a rainbow Pride flag draped over theirs. The background is a blurred sky. The image reads, "5 LGBTQ poems for the classroom"

Introducing 5 memorable LGBTQ poems for the classroom

Give your students a chance to understand and celebrate diversity with these five LGBTQ poems for the classroom. They make the perfect addition to any secondary ELA curriculum! *Please note: I identify as Queer and will often interchange terms like LGBTQ, LGBTQIA+, Queer, etc. “I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party” by Chen Chen Published in 2018 Recommended grade level(s):✨9th-12th Brief summary:✨ Chen Chen writes of the uncomfortable homophobia his parents covertly and overtly display at a family dinner with his partner. Devices to pair:✨ Allusion to Home Alone✨ Enjambment✨ Tone “Survival Guide” by Joy Ladin Published in 2017 Recommended grade level(s):✨8th-10th Brief summary:✨ Ladin writes a poem of encouragement for young folks to unapologetically embrace their identity. What to teach:✨ Irony✨ Metaphor✨ Coming-of-age & identity themes “A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde Published

Carina Assayed June 19, 2023

Creative Poetry Month Lessons for National Poetry Month atop a photo of several young students in a classroom. the student closest in view is raising their hand while a blurry teacher in the background smiles at the student.

13 Creative Poetry Month Lessons to Engage Middle Graders

Bring poetry month lessons to the classroom this April (aka National Poetry Month)! We specifically chose these 13 meaningful poems to appeal to middle-grade students. April is the month we celebrate poetry and verse. What better way to introduce middle graders to the joys of lyrical expression than with 13 purposefully selected poems? From repetition to thematic analysis, these lesson ideas will help students discover the wonders of poetry. Note: I used the WONDERFUL resource, CommonLit, to find these inclusive middle-grade poems. My district pays for the full CommonLit version, but the free version is incredibly beneficial as well. Poetry Month Lesson on SYMBOLISM “Peaches” by Adrienne Su A speaker describes life as a child of immigrant parents. Students analyze the speaker’s use of peaches to symbolize her conflicted feelings about her identity as a

Carina Assayed March 22, 2023

Brightly colored hard cover books arranged in a circle in rainbow order. At the top of the image there is a white border with pink and blue text that says "Native American Heritage Month in Secondary ELA"

ELA Texts & Resources for Honoring Native American Heritage Month

Looking for text recommendations and engaging resources that you can use during Native American Heritage Month (and year round!), look no further! How many Native American/First Nation voices are present in your curriculum or your classroom library? If you aren’t sure, I have a free tool that allows you to see what’s missing, representation-wise, from your classroom library. Indigenous stories aren’t just underrepresented in schools, they are vastly underrepresented in publishing as well. According to data compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, only 1% of children’s books released in 2018 were written about Indigenous characters. That number deteriorated even further when we looked at how many books were written BY Indigenous authors. Even though there are hundreds of nations and tribal affiliations across Turtle Island – with a variety of diverse experiences, customs, and practices

Leila Hobbs November 9, 2022

A photo of a stack of books and a students hand writing in a notebook. At the top of the image there is pink and blue text that says How to Teach Haiku in Secondary ELA

6 Tips for Teaching How to Write a Haiku

Fun and easy-to-implement tips and activities to help your your students understand, appreciate, and learn how to write a haiku. I’ve blogged a lot about teaching poetry in Secondary ELA, and today I’m focusing on a specific kind of poem – teaching haiku. Your students probably learned how to write a haiku in lower grades, but I think it’s worth revisiting in middle or high school ELA to help students gain a deeper appreciation. Activities and Ideas for Teaching Haiku Start with a brief history of haiku Evolving from earlier forms of Japanese poetry that featured the alternating 5-7 syllable pattern, the haiku format as we know it has been around for over 400 years! In traditional Japanese haiku, there is more to the art form than just the syllable structure, like the inclusion of

Leila Hobbs November 7, 2022

A photo of a wooden table in front of a snowy mountainside. On the table there is a coffee cup, a book, and a pair of reading glasses on top of the book. Above the image there is a white border with pink and blue text reading "Contemporary Poems by Black Authors"

7 Contemporary Poems by Black Authors for Secondary ELA

These contemporary poems by Black authors will help diversify your poetry unit, help students process current events, and even help engage reluctant poetry readers. Listen y’all, I’m not hating on the classics! Groundbreaking and hugely influential Black poets like Gwendolyn Brooks, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, etc. all deserve a place in the ELA curriculum. However, it’s not enough for us to only teach the classics, especially when it comes to poetry. It’s easy for students to feel like poetry is “boring” or irrelevant, so today, I’m sharing seven contemporary poems by Black authors to help your students connect with the voices and experiences of their peers, not their grandparents. Contemporary Poems by Black Authors: “In This Place (An American Lyric)” by Amanda Gorman “There’s a place where this poem dwells— it is

Leila Hobbs July 12, 2022

An overhead photo of brightly colored books standing up. There is a white banner at the top with pink text that says "YA & MG Novels in Verse"

8 Captivating Novels in Verse for Secondary ELA Students

Whether you’re hosting a lit circle or adding to your classroom library, these novels in verse will be a big hit with your secondary ELA students. I love incorporating verse novels into the classroom! The fact that they have compelling stories, and easy-to-connect with characters makes verse novels an ideal choice for reluctant poetry readers. Students that aren’t typically interested in poetry, but who are interested in the story, can grow to appreciate the writing style. Keeping a few verse novels in your classroom library is also a great way to let students explore poetry in a “no pressure” setting. In this post, I’ll share some novels in verse for middle and high school ELA, plus some extension/enrichment activities that you can use to accompany the books. If you want to pick up any of

Leila Hobbs June 7, 2022

A stack of books with the overlayed text "Poetry. Engaging ideas for in-person, hybrid, or digital."

Tips & Resources for Teaching Poetry in Secondary ELA

These tips for teaching poetry in secondary ELA are perfect for National Poetry Month (April), and they’ll help you create engaging lessons year-round. Is there a subject that divides students (and teachers, let’s be honest) more than poetry? Some folx (like me!) find poetry to be magical, moving, and merry, others find it to be confusing, boring, and a chore. While that hurts my heart, I understand. Poetry is a unique and exciting literary experience. A wide range of formats expressing a wide range of emotions. But our students can’t appreciate that if all we focus on is memorizing literary elements. By creating an inclusive, relevant, and approachable poetry unit, we can help more kids to fall in love with poetry as an art form. Over the years I’ve blogged a lot about teaching poetry

Danielle Hall April 20, 2021

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Want a contemporary novel for your curriculum? Need classroom library suggestions? Check out Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo If you love YA books, you’re probably familiar with Elizabeth Acevedo’s work. Her debut novel The Poet X was a breathtakingly beautiful novel-in-verse, and a breakout success. We featured her follow up novel, With the Fire on High, on the YA Cafe Podcast. WtFoH was an unexpected novel-in-prose, but equally wonderful. With Clap When You Land, Acevedo returns to her poetry roots and gives us another novel-in-verse. If you’re looking to add more Latinx voices to your classroom library, any of Acevedo’s books are a great choice. I also have a blog post featuring my favorite YA books by Latinx authors. Today’s post is written by the amazing

Leila Hobbs February 17, 2021

7 Science Fiction Poems for Secondary ELA

Using science fiction poems (or speculative poems) in the classroom can be a great way for students to build a deeper understanding of the genre. Students often have a very narrow understanding of science fiction (limiting it to perhaps one or two television shows or movies), and we can help them extend this. Additionally, this particular genre will show students that poetry isn’t some dusty art form relegated to Shakespeare or Byron. This post includes Amazon Affiliate links. Any revenue that Amazon shares with me will be used for the upkeep of this site. 🙂 Here are some science fiction poems I love using in my secondary ELA class. 1. “Six Haiku” by Karen Anderson The white vapor trail Scrawls slowly on the sky Without any squeak. I love Haiku for their brevity, and Karen

Danielle Hall October 18, 2018

Poetry Speed-Dating

I love poetry, and I always want to share that love of poetry with students. Last year, I decided to add a new element to my poetry unit, Poetry Speed-dating. This simple activity allows students to explore some poetry in a low-stakes way. Set Up Poetry Speed-Dating The set-up is simple. Find a variety of poetry books and anthologies for students to browse. You can collect anthologies from the library, set up stations with access to various poetry websites you like, or have students bring in books of poetry from home. If students have a favorite poem from childhood (perhaps something from Where the Sidewalk Ends), this can be a wonderful place to start. Allow students to browse. It really is that simple. I remind students to write down the names of

Danielle Hall March 21, 2017

Expose your secondary students to a wide range of classic poetry using these engaging bellringers! Students create and analyze, finding fun and meaning in each of these thirty class poems.

Use Bellringers to Help Students Love Poetry

It can be tough to get students engaged with poetry, but I have found a solution! Poetry Bellringers. I created this resource as a way to share several classic poems with students in a short amount of time. There’s no over-analysis here – each activity is short and targeted. Also, since each activity is a Bellringer, or happens within the first few minutes of class, they can be used in conjunction with other poetry activities. What Poetry Bellringers Look Like: Each of these thirty bellringers has a snippet of a classic poem, or the whole thing if the poem is short. Then, each bellringer has a different creative or analytical prompt. Students could identify poetic devices in one poem, illustrate another, create a new poem in the same style, etc. Major Benefits: Exposure – If you

Danielle Hall November 1, 2016

Our BLOG ARCHIVE

SEARCH BY TOPIC