TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Apr 21, 2019
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database - Split This Rock
Grades
10 to 12tag(s): authors (103), creativity (91), environment (240), identity (28), poetry (189), sexuality (15), sociology (22)
In the Classroom
Be sure to preview any work on this site before sharing with your students. Take advantage of this database for use when looking for contemporary poetry to use in your classroom. Enjoy sharing poetry with students as models for poetry writing and reading or to introduce poets to your students. Be sure to ask students what the poem says about the poet as part of a self identity unit. Once students have written their own poems, ask them what the poem says about their own self identity. Instead of asking students to create a written journal of poetry, replace the written journal and build a poetry portfolio by having them use a bookmarking tool like Wakelet, reviewed here. Use Wakelet to add links to student-created poetry, poems from their favorite poets, audio recordings of their poetry, and videos sharing different structures of poetry. As a final project, ask students to extend learning and classroom technology by creating podcasts discussing and featuring both their work and the work of favorite poets. Spotify for Podcasters, reviewed here, is a free, easy to use podcast creation and sharing site.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Poem Generator - Masterpiece Generator
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): parts of speech (40), poetry (189)
In the Classroom
Use the Poem Generator to introduce students to different forms of poems through exploration and use of the generator's features. This site is also a great tool to use when teaching parts of speech. Challenge students to identify the features that indicate different types of poems. Create a class Padlet, reviewed here, with columns for each type of poem and ask students to share their creations in the appropriate column. After students have time to experiment with the Poem Generator, challenge them to create poems without using this tool. Enhance classroom technology use by adding a reading of their final project to Voxer, reviewed here. Ask students to add audio recordings including their reading of the poem and a short discussion sharing the features that identify the poem as belonging to a specific genre. Transform classroom technology use by having students publish their poetry using Book Creator, reviewed here, to make a class book with all of your students' poetry. Be sure to have each student include an audio recording reading their poem!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poetry Generators - Poem of Quotes
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): digital storytelling (141), poetry (189)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of the poem generator to motivate students' interest in poetry and offer the opportunity to explore different types of poetry. As students become more confident in creating their poetry, use a digital portfolio tool like Spaces, reviewed here, for students to compile and share their poetry. Transform classroom technology use by having students publish their poetry using Book Creator, reviewed here. In addition to sharing poems, ask students to add images and record audio, reading their poems and sharing their creative process when writing poetry.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poetry Writing with Jack Prelutsky - Scholastic
Grades
2 to 8This site includes advertising.
tag(s): poetry (189)
In the Classroom
Start your language arts lesson with Jack Prelutsky by reading the poem "Louder Than a Clap of Thunder," featured in this lesson. If you have access to his books, put them out on desks/tables and have students look through and read a poem out loud for their group. After this introduction, read the poem for the lesson again and have students try to write their own "Prelutsky-like" poem. Once students finalize their poems, offer a variety of ways to present their poems through drama or enhance your classroom technology use by using a digital story using Bookemon, reviewed here, or Prezi, reviewed here; with either of these tools you could enhance classroom technology use depending on your requirements for the assignment. Add the poems to your class website or blog.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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CurriConnects Booklist: Poets and Poetry - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12tag(s): book lists (161), literature (217), poetry (189)
In the Classroom
This list will fit well during National Poetry Month or any unit on poetry. Finding Lexiles for poetry can be a challenge, but this list includes them where available. Augment or modify classroom technology use (depending on assignment requirements) by having your students "collect" their favorite poems as they read from this list and share them as a multimedia poetry reading using copyright-friendly images or even their own artwork. Upload images and add the poetry in the student's own voice using a tool like Powtoon, reviewed here, or moovly, reviewed here. Go "low tech" by hosting a live poetry reading celebration in your classroom or during lunch in the school cafeteria.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kids Magnetic Poetry Kit - McDonagh Brothers
Grades
K to 5This site includes advertising.
tag(s): interactive stories (21), poetry (189), sight words (23)
In the Classroom
Share this site on your projector or interactive whiteboard for students to see how to create a poem. Use this site to practice sight words. The magnetic poetry kit would make an excellent center activity for use during Poetry Month. Create a shortcut on classroom computers and let students create their own poems. Share completed poems on a class bulletin board or your class website. Take a screenshot (PrntScrn button, then PASTE on a WIndows machine or Command+Shift+4 on a Mac to save a screenshot) of the completed poems to put into a digital portfolio such as Seesaw, reviewed here. View all of TeachersFirst's Editor's Choices for Poetry Month here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Power Poetry - Power Poetry
Grades
8 to 12tag(s): poetry (189), social and emotional learning (81)
In the Classroom
Encourage your most avid writers to submit their poetry to this site. Use your whiteboard or projector to show them the "Take Action Guides." There you will find many issues of concern to youth today. Most students will enjoy uniting multimedia, poetry, and activism in one place. Challenge your students to choose a contemorary poet, either from this site's list or one they know of, and study their poetic form, then to write a poem in that poet's style. Enhance learning by having students keep a blog using a tool like Penzu, reviewed here, to write down their thoughts as they investigate different parts of this site. This will help them when it comes time to write their own poem. With Penzu you can add images or your own artwork as illustrations. Then extend learning by having students either publish their poems on the site or by using a multimedia tool like Genially, reviewed here, and publish their poems on your classroom or school web page. Counselors may want to encourage disenfranchised students to join the site and write about their deepest feelings. This is a supportive community that encourages students to develop their own voice.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poem Hunter - PoemHunter.com
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): authors (103), biographies (93), literature (217), poetry (189), quotations (20)
In the Classroom
Bookmark PoemHunter to use as a resource for finding poetry or quotations for classroom use. Share with students to find poems based on personal interest or specific topics. Use as a model when students create their own poems. Challenge students to create their own poems to be shared on a class poetry wiki. Not comfortable with wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Theme Poem Generator - Read, Write, Think - International Reading Association
Grades
K to 4tag(s): poetry (189)
In the Classroom
This site is perfect for use on an interactive whiteboard (or projector) to introduce the concept of theme (shape) poems. Choose a theme and create a poem together as a class. Use as a teacher-led center and have groups of students create shape poems using this site. Print and display student-created poems on a classroom bulletin board. Enhance classroom technology use and challenge students to brainstorm words to go with chosen shapes prior to creating their poem using a tool such as Padlet, reviewed here, or to create a word cloud of terms about a theme before creating poems using a tool such as Word Clouds for Kids, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poetry Month Editor's Choice Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12tag(s): poetry (189)
In the Classroom
Make Poetry Month a participatory experience. Have students compose a limerick explaining a science term or historic figure. Have students collect a list of words from your current unit. Then offer extra credit for a poetic interpretation to be shared as a daily "poetry break" during April. Use one of the tools featured here to share poetic visions of biology, geometry, and more during April. Cover a classroom wall with white paper for "curriculum poetry" during April. Encourage students to share poetry graffiti (classroom appropriate, of course). Or, replace the papered wall for an online bulletin board like Padlet, reviewed here. For more poetic ideas check out the "In the classroom" suggestions included in each review.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poems = Word Comics - Austin Kleon
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): creative writing (121), poetry (189), writing (315)
In the Classroom
Visual thinkers sometimes experience difficulty expressing their thoughts in words and when asked to write a poem, they literally fall apart. Poetry has images inherent in its form; therefore, spark your students' creativity by enabling them to think of a line in a poem as a frame in a cartoon. By jumping from image to image, the poem takes on a comic-like element, where the words and images are dependent upon each other. Rather than getting jammed up on words that rhyme, this approach offers a clever and amazing way to "write a poem." This activity would work well for pairing visual learners or artistically inclined students with the stronger writers in the class, or by using individual computers and modifying technology use to combine the Poems = Word Comics concept with Make Beliefs Comix, reviewed here, to create professional looking poetic comics.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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