Lesson Plans

By Sarah Kortemeier

Students will write a poem that features a volta (a change in the poem's argument), using Ada Limón's "What I Didn't Know Before" as a model. 

Education Level:
High School, University, Adult

By Sarah Kortemeier, Mary Carol Combs, and the students of TLS 641

Students will reflect and write creatively on themes of language and migration, using Javier Zamora's poem "Let Me Try Again" as a model.

Education Level:
University

By Sonja Fordham and Sarah Kortemeier

Students will draft a literacy narrative poem, modeled on Lucille Clifton’s poem “lucy one-eye,” in which they create themselves as literary characters. This lesson is designed as an introductory activity for a unit on literacy narrative and/or memoir.

Education Level:
University

By Matthew John Conley and Sarah Kortemeier

Students will explore the effects of line endings by discussing lineation in an existing poem and generating lineated poetic text. Students will also listen to and transcribe poetry.

Education Level:
High School, University, Adult

By Sarah Kortemeier and Ryan Winet

Students will use assonance to reinvigorate and examine their relationship with a familiar place.

Education Level:
High School, University, Adult

By Sonja Fordham and Sarah Kortemeier

Students will create a list of “little-known facts” that a fictional or non-fictional character might use as a persuasive strategy in the creation of a public argument.

Education Level:
University

By Matthew John Conley and Sarah Kortemeier 

Students identify rhetorical devices in a single poem and analyze the rhetorical situation of poetry (and poetry readings); using these ideas, they will also create and perform a piece of poetic text that illustrates an encounter between two characters with a stake in a controversy.

Education Level:
University

By Sarah Kortemeier and Julie Lauterbach-Colby

Students use prompts drawn from Roger Bonair-Agard's "allegory of the black man at work in the synagogue" to write about the identities they inhabit. 

Education Level:
High School, University, Adult

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