Hey-ooo! This post is part of our Teaching Poetry Fest collaboration, bringing you tons and TONS of ideas for teaching poetry in your secondary ELA classroom as we prepare for National Poetry Month. 

But here’s the thing, poetry should be a thing all of the time. I love that it gets a month so that we don’t forget about it but, just like all of the other necessary months (shout-out to Black History month!), we need to be doing it all year long. It doesn’t need its own unit, it doesn’t need its own month, it needs to be integrated as much as possible.

Why? 

Well, there are a couple of reasons that I see. First, if we leave poetry for a specific month or unit, we’ll wind up prioritizing other things when we run out of time for them and then never have time to teach poetry. And secondly, when we designate poetry to its own month or unit, we make it seem like it is something totally “other” that ends up intimidating everyone, ourselves included.

In reality, poetry is one of the most flexible, instructionally powerful tools we have. 

I am definitely someone who has been intimidated by poetry in the past. As a little, baby teacher, I would look at a poem in my textbook, and say to myself, “wow, I don’t get this. How the heck am I going to teach it? …….let’s just not.” 

But when we plan intentionally, especially with the Science of Reading research in mind, poetry becomes one of the easiest ways to strengthen comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, fluency, and knowledge building all at once. AND you can totally integrate it into ANY existing unit.

Let’s talk about how.

How to Teach Poetry All Year in Secondary ELA

Instead of thinking of poetry as a unit, think of it as a tool that you can use to help with all of the other things that you have to do!

Here are 20+ ways to incorporate poetry into middle and high school ELA, organized into categories that feel a little more “necessary” than “ugh, I have to add poetry in somewhere.”

Using Poetry to Build Background Knowledge

The first time I heard about this idea, I was chatting with my friend Lesa @smithteaches9to12 and I loved it so much that I immediately started brainstorming where I could add poems into my curriculum. Poems are usually short enough that they can be added in a day or two but they also USUALLY pack enough emotional punch to them that they hit the essential question, theme and/or historical context POWERFULLY. Think about some of these ideas in relation to your current unit. How can you add in a poem?

1. Pair poems with your essential question.
2. Introduce major themes before reading a novel.
3. Provide historical context or cultural perspectives for a time period.
4. Compare a poem to an informational article on the same topic.
5. Preview tone and mood before starting a longer text.

Short poems are powerful background knowledge builders and, honestly, they build confidence too… because if you can understand what a poem is saying, with its complex syntax and themes, you can definitely understand the anchor texts with confidence. Use poems as a bridge to enter those super complex anchor texts.

Teaching Skills Through Poetry (Without Overwhelming Students)

This is the real MVP. 

Again, the short length of poems makes them the perfect way to teach ELA skills. Poetry is the ideal text for a mini lesson on any of the following items. Wouldn’t you rather teach a skill using one page, instead of 10? 

6. Teach tone shifts in 15 lines instead of 15 pages.
7. Practice identifying figurative language
8. Model close reading strategies.
9. Study punctuation. Full Stop. 

And adding on to #9:

10. Analyze syntax and sentence structure (the punctuation is there for a reason!).
11. Practice making inferences.
12. Track word choice and connotation.
13. Teach symbolism in concentrated form.
14. Rhetorical analysis mini-lessons.

Every single one of these ideas could have the phrase “in a contained space” added after them. THIS IS THE BEAUTY of poetry all year long. We don’t have time to teach all of these skills in isolation when the perfect text for each of them is 100 pages long (can poetry be used to teach exaggeration and hyperbole?). And, on top of that, students will get burnt out when we try to teach one skill with a super long text every time. Try doing it with a poem instead.

Because poems are short, students can read, reread and reread AGAIN, which means you can teach the skill quickly but also help strengthen their comprehension because rereading is great for that!

Ideas 9 and 10 are two of my favorite reasons to teach poetry. I actually use a poem to introduce my students to our grammar instruction for the year. Poetry can help students see why sentence structure matters. Language is a beautiful thing and that is never more obvious than in a poem. Grab the free lesson and tell me what you and your students think of language afterwards.

Poetry as a Routine with Low-Prep Integration

Another idea category here is to integrate poetry as a routine. Admittedly, I don’t do a poem of the week or use poetry bell ringers to practice test prep skills but I have seen some really great products for that. It is something to think about. I already have a weekly vocabulary routine AND do an article of the week during specific units so it won’t work for me but do you think you can integrate it into your class?

I do use poems as quickwrite mentor texts regularly, but I always tell my students that they can respond in any form because poetry DOES feel intimidating when we start out. Every time we read a poem in class, though, for whatever reasons, everyone reads it aloud to practice fluency because it is a low-stakes way to build fluency and prosody.

15. Quick-write Mentor texts.
16. Fluency practice and prosody work.
17. Poem of the Week.
18. Poetry bell ringers or exit tickets – great for test prep.
19. Weekly discussion starters.

Consistency reduces the intimidation factor. When poetry shows up regularly, it stops feeling “special” and intimidating… it starts feeling normal, which is EXACTLY why we should integrate poetry into our whole year, not just in April.

If you love the idea of integrating poetry regularly but don’t want to build everything from scratch, I’ve created seasonal secondary poetry resources designed to drop directly into your existing year. Each mini-unit includes three poems to gradually release the responsibility to your students. You can do all three poems in about a week or just drop one poem in so you can start to build consistency without adding prep. Each resource comes with a lesson slideshow, worksheet and teacher’s guide to the poem. These also double as great skill builders for things like tone (#6) connotation (#12) and theme (oops, I didn’t include that in the skills list, I guess we’re up to 21 ways to integrate poetry all year long).

Using Poetry to Strengthen Writing

These last six ideas are pretty much all repeats (so I didn’t count them in the title) but I’m bringing them back up because I want you to think about them in the context of ‘we want students to be better writers as well as readers.’ I’m a reading teacher to my core but the writing standards are my responsibility as well. 

Poetry gives students permission to experiment with language, which improves their writing, in general.

20. Mentor texts for… anything.
21. Imitation exercises at the sentence level.
22. Found poetry from informational texts.
23. Synthesis or argument in poetic form.
24. Practice the revision process.
25. Identity and voice reflection pieces.

Give a poem as a mentor text for a mini-lesson on any skill and then have your students use the poem as a model to try using that skill in their own writing. The same goes for sentence level writing, too! 

And what better way to prove that you’ve mastered an informational text, novel or argument than by turning it into a poem!?

Does Poetry Support the Science of Reading in Secondary ELA

If you follow my work, you know I care deeply about applying Science of Reading research in secondary classrooms in ways that are developmentally appropriate. If you don’t already follow me, I would like to use this as an opportunity to cordially invite you to the show. But anyway,

Yes! Poetry strengthens vocabulary, syntax awareness, background knowledge, and verbal reasoning and these are all key strands of skilled reading.

When aligned with Scarborough’s Reading Rope, poetry becomes a compact but powerful way to strengthen multiple strands at once without adding another overwhelming text to your curriculum.

This is exactly why I encourage secondary teachers to plan intentionally. When poetry is integrated strategically, it strengthens students’ reading comprehension of the already super complex texts that we teach.

So Where Do Teachers Find Good Poems?

This, and the fact that poetry is intimidating, is usually the real barrier. Try starting really simply.

1. Begin with your essential question. Search for poems connected to your unit theme.

2. Search by skill. Need tone shifts? Imagery? Irony? Search directly for those.

3. Use historical context. Find poets writing during the era you’re teaching.

4. Let students help curate. Turn it into an assignment. Tell students to “Find a poem related to ____” and then see what they bring to the table. Can you use it next year?

How to Start This Week

If this feels overwhelming, here’s the simplest entry point:

• Choose one upcoming unit.
• Add one poem that connects to the theme or skill you’re teaching.
• Use the same annotation routine you already use (If you don’t have one, I recommend TP-CASTT)
• Repeat during your next unit!

That’s it. No new unit. No major overhaul. Just integration.