Thinking of ways to incorporate some poetry into your lessons in April (or at any point of the year really?)? Not sure you can invest a lot of time and space in your plans to focus on poetry? Well, here are five perfect poems to use in your high school English classroom over a series of lessons. Use these as small activities to activate students’ thinking, explore poetry in a low-key way, or find time for a longer one-time lesson. These five poems for National Poetry Month are perfect for such activities and lessons. Check them out below along with some ideas for how to use each one.
Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
This classic from Billy Collin is the first of five poems for National Poetry Month and it is a great kick-off to share how to analyze a poem. It also takes a humorous approach to help to demystify poetry.
Link to Collins’ poem.
Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
Provide or display the poem without the title. Ask students to come up with a title and provide a rationale for it based on the rest of the poem.
Link to Plath’s poem.
Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda
This poem is *chef’s kiss* of contemporary odes. A declaration to something so simple; so too are all of the odes in the collection Odes to Common Things. Use this poem as a mentor text for students to explore the poetry form and then to write their own. Read more of the odes in this article. And check out this ready-made lesson to explore and to write odes.
Link to Neruda’s poem.
Names by Wendy Cope
A couple of options with this poem. The first is to use this poem as a timeline. Trace the different names used and the subject’s life that corresponds to each stage. Another option is to use this as inspiration for students to explore either their own name history (do this with caution) or that of a famous or fictitious person. Some examples that my students have used include singers who have changed their names more than once – Kanye, Puff Daddy, Prince – or actors and the characters they’ve played on television or in movies.
Link to Cope’s poem – this version is annotated.
At the Student Poetry Reading by Kim Stafford
This poem would work as a great opener for students’ discussion around poetry performance. It could lead to watching some performances of poems. Check out this FREE list of 15 TedTalks for National Poetry Month. A next step could be to have students write a poem based on one of the italicized lines in Stafford’s poem. The line could be used as a title or a general topic for a new creation.
Link to Stafford’s poem.
For more activity ideas, check out these poetry-related posts:
Poetry Creation and Risk Taking in ELA
3 Ideas for Poetry Creation in Everyday ELA Lessons
Or click POETRY in the category near the title and you’ll see all of the poetry-related posts… Poetry is a favorite of mine so there are a fair few and soon to be more!
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