Born into one of Boston's most prominent families (and growing up to detest it), Robert Lowell was perhaps the most important poet writing in English during the second half of the twentieth century. After leaving Harvard to study at Kenyon College, Lowell went on to study at Louisiana State University under the novelist and poet Robert Penn Warren. Lowell's second book, Lord Weary's Castle, was...

While astronomy and other sciences may be commonly viewed as having little to do with poetry, this lesson unit from ReadWriteThink provides a pathway to combine them. Created with students in grades six to eight in mind, this standards-aligned lesson unit is designed to take place over approximately three weeks, concurrent with an astronomy unit. Over the course of the Astronomy Poetry lessons,...

The Academy of American Poets and EDSITEment have teamed up to create Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community, an online initiative and set of lesson plans designed to engage youth with contemporary poetry. The title of the initiative comes from Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, who, during a 2015 interview at the Library of Congress, discussed the civic responsibility of poets: "Let's...

How does one teach poetry in any subject or quantity? The folks at Lesson Planet have assembled a fine range of helpful lesson plans that include discussions of haiku, poetic analysis, and utilizing poems to understand history and other subjects. Visitors will be glad to learn that there are over 6,400 lesson plans searchable by Resource Type, Grade, and User Rating among other categories. A...

On a recent visit to the Library of Congress: Poetry website, the first line of a poem by William Stafford appeared on the top of the page. The poem in question was "At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border", and it just one of many poems that can be found on this simple delightful site. Amidst this cornucopia of poems, visitors can also learn about the current poet laureate and take...

The Academy of American Poets has been providing resources to teachers since it launched its website almost twenty years ago. The site includes essays about teaching poetry, links to other great poetry sites, and curriculum units and lesson plans for teaching poetry in elementary school, high school, and at the university level. The 38 lesson plans are a great place to start and range from...

For young people, mathematics can be terribly frightening, boring, or confusing. It can be hard to break through to individuals who may have had a difficult first experience with the subject. That's why Professor Patrick Bahls of the University of North Carolina, Asheville decided to try something a bit different. In the fall of 2007, he began to have math students write short poems offering some...

April 2000 marks the fifth occurrence of National Poetry Month, the month-long celebration of poetry sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. The event "brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture." This year's celebration features public service announcements...

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has assembled a virtual bounty of poetry-related lesson plans on its well-organized website. Here readers will find 20 different lessons plans for students between the ages of six and 18. For example, A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry, was developed for students in kindergarten through 2nd grade, and provides teachers with an...

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of human expression, and can be found in almost every part of the world, manifesting itself to express every type of emotion, whether it be hope, sadness, or exuberance. This persuasive and helpful Web site was developed by the Academy of American Poets in order to provide both professional development for high school English teachers and a virtual teaching...