POETRY WRITING UNIT - 18 Creative Writing Lesson Plans & 85 Activities

This grade 9-12 POETRY WRITING UNIT PLAN has 18 detailed creative writing lessons and 85 fun activities. Students are guided through journal activities to complete a poetry portfolio packet of 7 poems. It is a no prep, print and go (or put on Google Classroom) resource. The 89 slide vibrant PowerPoint presentation with some fun animations leads the students through each lesson. A sub without any prep time could supervise these lessons. All student instructions are supplied in the PowerPoint presentation and the students fill their activity responses and drafts directly into their journal. Everything you need to teach this unit has been done for you. You just need to print out and photocopy the student workbook, or upload the Easel Activity workbook, and you're set! 18 lessons DONE! This unit will inspire your high school students to love writing poetry. Put student poetry groans behind you once and for all! Please see the video preview.

Textual analysis tasks are expected of students, but primarily the unit is directed to the writing of poetry of different genres. They are also exposed to some fabulous poems by poets from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. The detailed lesson plans have been designed so that each plan can be directly shared with students on a screen. The lessons are designed to last an hour for an average class. If you have a class that takes their time over activities (either for good or bad reasons!), you might wish to exclude some of the shorter activities.

Included with the resource is a 34 page student workbook/journal.
I always call this document a journal when speaking about it to my class (it makes them feel more artsy!) but essentially it is a fun workbook. During the unit, students complete short journal entries every class, often several of them. They could receive completion marks for these entries. The workbook is compressed as much as possible to reduce photocopying and is intended for black and white copying or alternatively for use as an Easel Activity. There is enough color in the PowerPoint to please the eye if you take the photocopying route! The students can also decorate their journals themselves.

Handouts that you might wish to copy for students (such as a literary terms glossary) are grouped together for convenience at the end of the resource.
Only Lesson 1 requires supplies. Scissors, old magazines or books, plain paper and glue sticks are needed for Found Poetry. For the remaining 17 lessons, just the photocopied journal and student creativity are needed. Access to the internet is required to access some of the more recent poems. ALL LESSONS ARE STUDENT TESTED AND APPROVED!

List of contents
Portfolio contents summary
Lesson 1 OK, so what is poetry anyway?
Lesson 2 Vocabulary selection
Lesson 3 Avoiding clichés
Lesson 4 Vivid words
Lesson 5 Imagery
Lesson 6 Line lengths
Lesson 7 Literary devices
Lesson 8 Literary devices #2
Lesson 9 Rhyme and meter
Lesson 10 Narrative poetry
Lesson 11 Ballads
Lesson 12 Slam poetry #1
Lesson 13 Slam poetry #2
Lesson 14 Slam poetry #3
Lesson 15 Slam poetry #4: performance!
Lesson 16 Portfolio compilation time
Lesson 17 Peer review time
Lesson 18 Poetry celebration

Handouts you might photocopy:
Portfolio checklist
Literary devices glossary
Tips for the verbal reading of poetry
Peer feedback form
Teacher portfolio rubric

Here are some more of my fun high school ELA resources to take a peek at.
Creative Writing Board Game
WINTER CREATIVE WRITING Fun Prompts and Activities

Poetry bundle bonanza
ELA Games grades 9-12

Brain Teaser Mini Mysteries grades 9-12

I hope that your classes experience as much fun from these poetry activities as mine have done! If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this product - or any other product in my store - please write to me at brilliantlylit@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

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