Using Songs & Mentor Texts to Teach Poetry

UPDATED 8-1-2021

There are so many possibilities when using poetry in your classroom. Poetry gets a particular spotlight during the month of April for National Poetry Month, but there are so many benefits to using it in your classroom year round. 

• Student writers find this genre less intimidating
• Students can:
  • interpret poems differently leading to meaningful discussions
  • identify common themes & make inferences
  • practice annotating text
  • practice using various types of figurative language

Use  this product alone or alongside any poetry unit. 

This product includes: 

• 4 songs and 2 poems
• Teaching suggestions 
• Song lyrics to analyze
• Teacher song lyric pages with possible annotations 
• Link where you can listen to the song online
• Sample Poems
• Elements of Poetry Pages
• A list of mentor text suggestions

Use this product to help with these possible teaching objectives:

• Analyze how authors choose words to create images and portray a mood. 
• Analyze how song lyrics are poetry. 
• Identify figurative language and how poets/songwriters use these devices to write.
• Identify themes within poetry.
• Write poems using various poetic devices.