Poetry Theater-Words in Motion

Get your students comfortable with poetry by having them turn poems into live action skits!

Acting out poetry can be an engaging and effective way for students to deepen their understanding and appreciation of the art form.

This resource includes:

• Eight middle school appropriate poems.

• Worksheets that are formatted to walk students through the annotation process.

• Discussion questions for each poem.

• Create the Skit Worksheet

• Detailed Teacher Instructions

Found Poetry with

“We Shall Overcome” Speech

After students read Johnson’s “We Shall Overcome” speech about voter rights, they will underline important, impactful, and powerful words and phrases.

They will use these words to create a found poem.

This resource includes:

• Activity Slides: Interactive Google Slides with moveable text boxes, Informational Video about Bloody Sunday, Links to Excerpts.

• Excerpts: “We Shall Overcome” Speech split into three excerpts.

• Also includes a sermon from Martin Luther King that he delivered in response to Bloody Sunday.

• Detailed Teacher Instructions with Answers

Narrative Poetry Activity-

“The Highwayman”

Your students will love this poem! It has a little something for everyone- romance, betrayal, and action! Students will read the poem, watch the short movie, answer the questions, and finish it off with a 10-question quiz.

This resource includes:

• Vocab Slides: 16 slides that teach the difficult vocabulary from the poem.

• Student Worksheet: Includes the poem with at least 2 questions per stanza to help students analyze and understand the poem.

• Student Response Questions- Two constructed response questions that require students to thinking analytically and provide textual evidence.

• Quiz: 10 multiple choice questions related to the plot, author’s purpose, and figurative language.

• Detailed Teacher Instructions with Answers