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Give Students a Voice with Poetry

World Poetry Day, celebrated on March 21, offers a wonderful opportunity to bring the power of verse into your classroom and to ignite a love of language in your students. This curated collection of resources—spanning lesson plans, poet biographies, writing prompts, and poetry interactives—will help you explore poetry's rich traditions and diverse voices with learners of all ages. The inspiration doesn't have to stop there: these resources serve double duty as the perfect springboard for National Poetry Month in April, giving you a head start on a full month of literary celebration and creative exploration.

Grades K-8

I Think That I Shall Never See - Using and Analyzing Poetry in the Classroom

Start your poetry learning journey with this original article from TeachersFirst, which includes the history of poetry, forms, classroom uses, curated book lists, online tools, cross-curricular activities, and standards alignment for all grade levels.

Grades 4-12

Poem Generator

Quickly create several different forms of poetry using the Poem Generator. Choose from over a dozen different form options, then follow the prompts to add a topic and words to include. To create and complete your poem, select Write Me a Poem.

Grades 2-12

Word Mover

Use Word Mover to assemble poems from word tiles. Use word banks, existing famous works, or create your own word tiles. Experiment with word placement, size, font, color, and twelve backgrounds. Register with a username to save, download, or share.

Grades 6-12

Maya Angelou

Engage students with Maya Angelou's powerful poem "Still I Rise" with this Learning for Justice lesson plan. Students explore identity, resilience, and figurative language as they connect the poem's message of overcoming adversity to their own lives.

Grades 6-12

Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature

Listen to audio recordings of renowned writers and poets dating back to 1943 on this remarkable site that contains nearly 2,000 recordings of participants in Library of Congress literary events, most digitized from original magnetic tape reels.

Grades 3-12

AI Poem Generator

This free AI-powered tool makes poetry writing accessible to everyone. Simply enter a prompt and choose from styles like haiku, sonnet, limerick, and free verse. Customize length and tone, then download or share your generated poem instantly.

Grades K-5

Poetry By Heart

Poetry By Heart is a free poetry recitation competition for schools in England. Its website features a vast digital timeline of poems, professional performance clips, and teaching resources to help students and teachers explore and perform poetry.

Grades 6-12

Poetry Everywhere

Poetry Everywhere is a PBS Learning Media collection of short videos of contemporary poets reading their work. These videos bring poems to life through performance and visual art, making poetry accessible and engaging for students and teachers.

Grades K-5

Kids Magnetic Poetry Kit

Create and play with poetry using this interactive magnetic poetry kit! Drag words from the word bank onto the blank board to build poems. When finished, save and share using the provided form.

Grades 4-12

Poems of Quotes - Poetry Generators

Discover a free, web-based poetry generator that helps you create various styles of verse instantly. By inputting keywords or themes, you can generate haikus, sonnets, and acrostic poems, making it a great tool for overcoming writer's block.

This Week at TeachersFirst

Although our live winter virtual workshops have ended, we have more than eighty flexible professional learning opportunities to explore, including our on-demand workshops and professional learning units (PLUs). We're also sharing a post from our Infusing Technology Blog and a paid opportunity to join our team as a part-time contributor. Read the details below!