Poetry

Text Set
 7th Grade, SOL 7.5,
Poetry
I chose this topic because poetry is a topic that many
middle school students despise. While student
teaching, I had to teach a poetry unit and I struggled to
make it more interesting for my kiddos. By
incorporating a text set I will be able to expand the
range of poetry that students are introduced to.

The most central idea for this set is to introduce

students to the different types of poetry. This should
help students realize that poetry can be found almost
anywhere and that it is a much broader term than what
they are used to!

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 Anchor Text-
Literature from
McDougal Littell
Allen, J., Applebee, A. N., Burke, J., Carnine, D., Jackson,
Y., Jimenez, R. T., . . . Tomlinson, C. A. (2008).
McDougal Littell literature. Evanston, IL: McDougal
Littell.

***The reading level for this book is at a 6th-7th grade

level.

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 1.
Below Grade Level
Sources
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
Seuss, Dr. (1960). Green eggs and ham. New York, NY: Random House.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is a childhood classic for many that follows the tale of Sam in
realizing what he does and does not like, including green eggs and
ham!
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this text because it is a classic for many students. They will
be familiar with this text but will be looking at it from a different
perspective while studying poetry. They will be able to make
connections to what they are learning about poetry to what Dr.
Seuss does that makes this a poem.
✗ Reading Level- 2nd grade (Guided Reading Level J according to
Scholastic Book Wizard.)

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Guacamole by Jorge Argueta
Argueta, J., & Sada, M. (2016). Guacamole: Un poema para cocinar - Guacamole: A
cooking poem. Toronto: Groundwood Books.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is a poem that is written to explain the steps in making guacamole. Each page has
2 versions of the poem, one in English and the other in Spanish.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this poem because it is culturally diverse. It is a poem that relays an experience
that some students may have had, which is cooking with their parents. This also gives
students exposure to another language.
✗ How is it culturally diverse?
✗ This book can be considered differentiated instruction, as well as honoring student
experience according to the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Guidelines. This book
allows students whose native language may not be English to enjoy the poetry that
we are reviewing in class. In addition, it is honoring their home life and experiences by
including the poetry in their native language.
✗ Reading Level- 3rd grade (The lexile score for this is a 590L, which falls in the range of 3rd
grade when converting data.)

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Hallowilloween by Calef Brown
Brown, C. (2010). Hallowilloween:. nefarious silliness. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt Trade & Reference.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is a book with various forms of poems that have to do with
Halloween! They tackle subjects such as creatures, witches, etc.
✗ Why did I choose this book?
✗ I chose this book because it is a collection of short poems. There
will be at least one poem that a student can find that they enjoy in
this book. It also tackles various forms of poetry. In addition, this
text could be used to help students practice labeling rhyme
scheme!
✗ Reading level- 4th grade (the lexile score for this books is 690L which
falls into a high 3rd to 4th grade range.)

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Article: The Power of Poetry by Chris
Borris
Borris, C. (n.d.). The Power of Poetry. Scholastic.
doi:https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/power-poetry/

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is a brief article that provides an interview with the poet, Georgia Heard.
This provides students into how poetry is important, what it is, and how
teachers should be incorporating it into the classroom.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this article because it provides an insight into why poetry is important. I
think many times students struggle to understand the WHY of poetry. While
this is an article that is meant for teachers, having students read it allows the
student to become more knowledgeable. It also allows them the knowledge to
hold teachers accountable for how they are teaching poetry.
✗ Reading Level- 5th grade (the Lexile score for this is around 850L which falls at late
5th grade. There are some words that are more advanced, which puts it at late 5th
grade for me.)

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 2.
On Grade Level
Sources
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Alexander, K. (2014). The crossover. Boston, MA: Houghton MIfflin Harcourt.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This novel centers around a middle school student, named Josh, and his
family/friends. While it seems like an average story about a person, there are
deeper themes that students will be able to identify with. There are also
struggles the main character faces that students will be able to relate to.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this text because it was one of the more popular texts with my middle
schoolers during student teaching. This text introduces students to verse that
tells a full story. I feel that poetry is often introduced in isolation, with random
poems given, but this book tells a full story through poetry. It will teach
students about free verse and they will be able to identify poetic devices used
within the novel. There are also instances in this text that students will be able
to relate to easily.
✗ Reading Level- 7th grade (Guided Reading Level Z, according to Scholastic Book
Wizard)

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Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Hesse, K. (1997). Out of the dust. New York, NY: Scholastic.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This book follows a young girl during the dust bowl. Tragedy strikes her family and she is
faced with even more responsibility than before. This story follows journey to figuring
out how to cope with the tragedies that occur in life.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this novel because it has a female protagonist, and we have a male protagonist
showing up in our text set already. Similar to The Crossover, this text tells a story
through verse. The focus of this text is free verse. Students will be able to appreciate
the ability that poetry has to tell a story in simple, short ideas. This book is not super
long, only 256 pages, with most pages being short and sweet. This is something that
middle schoolers will appreciate. In addition, they will be familiar with the historical
context of this text because of previous history classes.
✗ Reading Level- 7th grade (Guided Reading Level X according to Scholastic Book Wizard)
✗ I chose to group this with 7th grade because students will need the historical
background to fully understand the text. The text also deals with somewhat more
mature themes that a 7th grader would be able to handle better than a younger grade.

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Poetry Speaks Who I am by Elise Paschen

Paschen, E. (2010). Poetry Speaks Who Am I. Chicago, IL: Sourcebooks.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This text has various poems from different poets. There are classic poets as
well as contemporary poets included in this book. There are a wide variety of
topics covered within this book because of the range of poems available.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this text because it introduces students to various types of poetry in
one place. These are short reads, that a student can pick up and put down
whenever they please. This book has such a variety of poetry that any student
will be able to find a poem in the text that they enjoy. The point of this text set
is for students to gain an appreciation of poetry and find something they
enjoy, and this text is perfect for this!
✗ Reading Level- 7th grade (Guided Reading Level Z according to Scholastic Book
Wizard.)

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American Poetry by Sally Wern Comport &
John Hollander

Hollander, J., & Comport, S. W. (2004). Poetry for young people: American poetry. New York,
NY: Sterling Pub.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is a book that contains various types of poems from American poets. The
authors and topics range greatly, ensuring that someone can find something
that they like!
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this because as a student, they will be introduced to many American
poets. This allows them to find a poet that they enjoy from poetry they are
likely to encounter again. Once again, this book shows students a variety of
poetry with various types of poetry present, which guarantees that students
will find at least on poem in this book that they will enjoy!
✗ Reading Level- 7th grade (Guided Reading Level Y according to Scholastic Book
Wizard)

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 3.
Above Grade Level
Sources
Pop Sonnets by Erik Didriksen
Didriksen, E. (2015). Pop sonnets: Skahespearean spins on your favorite songs.
Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This book takes popular songs, that students would be familiar with, and
turns them into sonnets similar to those that Shakespeare wrote!
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this because some students will have already been exposed to
Shakespeare and will be familiar with his work. This makes those sonnets
that they have read, and analyzed, more relatable because it is based off
songs they are familiar with. They will be able to pick apart the form of
the sonnets and analyze the meaning, which will be easier because they
can make connections to the songs they are referencing.
✗ Reading Level- 9th grade (Guided Reading Level Z according to Scholastic Book
Wizard.)

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Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
Kaur, R. (2015). Milk and honey. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is a collection of poems that tackle many topics, including love and
heartbreak. There are four sections within this book that follow a
timeline, including experiences for each emotion that is involved.
✗ Why did I choose it?
✗ I chose this book because it has seen increasing popularity in recent
years. Free verse is something that I find many students enjoy, and this
would be good for students to analyze and enjoy. To add even more
reason to include this in a text set, it deals with topics that many
students can relate to and make connections with.
✗ Reading Level- 9th grade (The Lexile Score for this is around 600L. However,
some of the topics that are dealt with in this book are serious, and though the
language is not as hard as other poetry books, the topics make it a more
mature read.)

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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Reynolds, J. (2019). Long way down. New-York, NY: Atheneum.

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is another book that is written in poetic form. This follows the
author’s life, and involves real-life experiences and struggles that the
author has went through.
✗ Why did I choose it?
✗ I chose this book because it was popular with my 7th grade students
while I was student teaching. When I read it, I understood why. They
were able to make connections and relate to the author, while reading
poetry! It is mostly in free verse, which is one of the more popular
forms of poetry for students. This will expose students to poetry in an
engaging way.
✗ Reading Level- 10th (The Lexile score for this is around 600L. However, while
the language used is simple, it does deal with some hard to read content, such
as violence, which makes it a more mature read.)

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www.readpoetry.com
Read Poetry. (2019). Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://www.readpoetry.com/

✗ What’s it about?
✗ This is a website with various resources students can enjoy. There is a
blog post, where articles are written that involve poetry. There is a
section for students to discover contemporary poets and their work.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this because it is a website that students can explore and find
new content on. I enjoy that it publishes contemporary works from
various authors and that it includes article that connect poetry to
real-life situations, such as death. This would be a good tool for students
to use to analyze poetry and keep them engaged.
✗ Reading Level- 11th (The Lexile score for an article on this blog is 1210L. Many
of the topics on this website deal with mature content, such as death, which
makes it a higher level reading than 7th grade.)

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 4.
Nonlinguistic
Materials
Video- America’s Got Talent,
Brandon Leake Performances
America's Got Talent [Video file]. (2020, September 25). Retrieved September 25, 2020,
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaPXcg7lLfg

✗ Link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaPXcg7lLfg
✗ What is it?
✗ This is a video of the performances put on by Brandon Leake, the 2020
winner of America’s Got Talent. Brandon Leake is a spoken poet.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ I chose this because I think it shows students how impactful poetry can
be. Students are able to listen to this person perform, hear the emotion
in his voice, the rhythm that he creates, etc. This will help them to better
understand what goes into poetry, what it sounds like, and how different
poetry can be from what they are used to seeing in schools.

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Video- What makes a poem...a poem?
TedTalk
What Makes a Poem...a Poem? [Video file]. (2017, March 20). Retrieved September 25, 2020,
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwhouCNq-Fc

✗ Link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwhouCNq-Fc
✗ What is it?
✗ This is a brief video that explains poetry to students. This goes into
the conventions of what makes a poem a poem in a simple
manner that is easy for everyone to understand.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ Part of what we want students to know is what makes a poem a
poem. Whether it be the different types of poems, forms, literary
devices used, etc. we want our students to be able to identify
what is special about poetry compared to other writing. This video
give a simple but good explanation of what makes a poem a poem.

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Video- Poetic Devices in Music
Patrick, D. (Director). (2011, November 27). Poetic Devices in Music [Video file]. Retrieved
September 25, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_QVhoLl_9U

✗ Link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_QVhoLl_9U
✗ What is it?
✗ This is a video that goes through several poetic devices/figurative
language that students will find within poetry. This video connects
these devices to music that students have probably heard before.
✗ Why did I choose this?
✗ Part of a poetry unit involves teaching students about the figurative
language and poetic devices that go into creating poetry. This video does
a good job of explaining these devices and connecting it to pop culture
by using music. This will make for an engaging video for students to
better understand what goes into poetry.

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Thanks!
Any questions or comments?
Contact me at
Amanda.Wright1@live.longwood.edu

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