The Tortured Poets Bundle – Author Biography Research Activity, Print & Digital

Taylor Swift just announced her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, will be released on April 19 – smack-dab in the middle of National Poetry Month. The online hype will grow as we get closer to the album launch, so let’s pull some of that TikTok excitement into the classroom by highlighting the lives and works of 13 (*wink) famously tortured poets.

Suggested lesson procedure:

• Break your class into 13 teams. Each team chooses one of the 13 poets to research in your computer lab or on their own 1:1 devices as they complete the assignment grid. (Each item is also posted as a separate product in my shop. Click any name to learn more about the individual item.)

1. Edgar Allan Poe

2. Sylvia Plath

3. Emily Dickinson

4. Lord Byron

5. John Keats

6. Percy Bysshe Shelley

7. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

8. T.S. Eliot

9. Oscar Wilde

10. Dylan Thomas

11. Jack Kerouac

12. Ernest Hemingway

13. William Shakespeare

(Note: I chose these 13 as our “tortured poets” because the emotional depth in their poetry often reflects their personal struggles. Please add or remove writers, as you wish.)

• Once the research grids are complete, ask students to look at their writer’s catalog of poetry, read a few of those poems, and then choose one that can be thematically connected to a popular song they know today. If your room is full of Taylor Swift fans, you can tie this assignment to the release of her new album by narrowing their connection list to songs from Taylor Swift’s discography. If your students are indifferent to Taylor Swift, open this up to any (school-appropriate) musical artist or song.

• Finally, if time allows, ask the student teams to prepare a two-minute presentation where they introduce their poet to the class by presenting four interesting things they discovered about the writer and sharing the poem they selected along with the modern musical connection. Alternatively, you could turn this part of the assignment into a poster-based gallery walk.

Download includes 13 pages in PDF & Google Drive formats. Uneditable.

All items in this 13-pack bundle are available individually, but you’ll save $6.50 (a 33% discount!) by purchasing them through the bundle offered on this page.

Note: This collection of author biography research worksheets is an independent product and is in no way affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Taylor Swift or her representatives. I do not claim to have any association with Taylor Swift, and this product should not be misconstrued as officially endorsed or supported by her in any way. The references to Taylor Swift in this product description are used for descriptive/informative purposes only. All content in this product is solely my own and does not reflect the opinions, views, or endorsements of Taylor Swift or her representatives. I appreciate Taylor Swift’s talent and contributions to the music industry. I wish to make it clear that my product is separate and distinct from her work.

Cover image used with permission and created by DALL·E, OpenAI’s AI model.