Poetry resources for Black History Month featuring classroom activities, poets, poems, writing prompts, history, culture, identity, and literary exploration.
A four-page poetry analysis worksheet using Langston Hughes's A Dream Deferred to teach simile, imagery, theme, historical context, personal response, and original figurative-language poetry writing.
Free classroom poetry activity for grades 1–2 celebrating African American poets through selecting, discussing, reading aloud, and collecting poems for a class anthology.
Free Smithsonian K–2 poetry lesson introducing the three-line blues stanza, rhythm, music, and Langston Hughes, with younger students composing their own blues poems.
Free Grade 9 interdisciplinary lesson connecting Harlem Renaissance poetry with art, music, dance, research, museum exhibits, and historical context.
Free high-school poetry lesson using Langston Hughes to connect poetry analysis, historical context, research, social issues, and original writing.
A free poetry lesson using Maya Angelou's 'Alone' to teach speaker, repetition, theme, close reading, listening, discussion, creative response, and broader study of Angelou's poetry.
Free middle-school poetry lesson using Maya Angelou's writing and primary-source photographs to connect poetry with civil rights, history, research, and visual literacy.
Free four-week primary poetry unit using listening, visualization, illustration, sound, silly poetry, shape poetry, science poetry, and poems by Black poets to strengthen reading comprehension.
A free poetry and civil-rights lesson using Mahogany L. Browne's poem about Fannie Lou Hamer to explore voting rights, activism, history, close reading, discussion, and research.
A free poetry lesson using Kwoya Fagin Maples's 'Invisible Work' to explore care, family labor, women's work, imagery, close reading, creative writing, comparison, and visual culture.
A free classroom poetry lesson using Lucille Clifton's 'sisters' to develop close reading, listening, discussion, interpretation, poetic-technique analysis, and understanding of women's voices.
Openly licensed Grades 9–12 U.S. history lesson connecting civil-rights primary texts, segregation and integration, paired-text analysis, and creation of a two-voice poem.
A Smithsonian classroom guide connecting poetry and music through ballad stanzas, blues, iambic rhythm, meter, scansion, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and hands-on activities that move poetry from the page into rhythm and performance.
Openly licensed Grade 9–10 poetry lesson in which students compare poetry and speeches, analyze word choice and rhetorical strategies, compose a poem, and consider poetry as a vehicle for change.
Openly licensed Grades 10–11 lesson on tone using song lyrics, nonfiction, close reading, civil-rights texts, and a Two-Voice Poem activity.
PoetrySoup's teacher resources are designed to help educators find useful poetry lesson plans, worksheets, writing activities, poetry analysis materials, and classroom resources for students at different grade levels.
Resources may include original PoetrySoup teaching materials, openly licensed educational resources, and carefully selected links to trusted educational organizations. Downloadable materials can be printed and used in the classroom according to the license and attribution information provided with each resource.