Lesson: Rhythm & Improv: Jazz & Poetry
The musicality of words is an important element of poetry, and many poets carefully consider the sound of the words on the page. Students will listen to and analyze jazz music
Jazz, Poetry

Arts Quotes: Maya Angelou
"Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances."
Literature, Poetry

Arts Quotes: Charles Baudelaire
"Genius is childhood recalled at will."
Literature, Poetry

Arts Quotes: Robert Frost
"If you are looking for something to be brave about consider fine arts."
America, Poetry

Everyday Arts Challenge: Patriotic Puzzler
Time to update an old classic. For fun, write a new Pledge of Allegiance. Recite your version out loud for a friend or family member. How would yours sound at the beginning of each school day?
America, Poetry

Arts Days: December 10, 1830: The Belle of Amherst
All the time she spent alone helped Emily Dickinson create some of the literary world’s most elegant and haunting poetry. As a girl, she attended school in nearby South Hadley, but was so homesick she dropped out and moved home. While she seldom entertained guests, she read widely and wrote tons of letters and poems—words that give us a glimpse into the workings of her heart and soul.

It was not until after her death in 1886 that her poems were published. Works such as “A bird came down the walk” and “Her final summer” (Dickinson almost never gave her poems titles, so they are generally referred to by their first lines), reveal her capacity for deep intellectual thought as well as an abiding love of nature.
Poetry, Nature

Article: Love in Poetry and Words
Need the right words for Valentine's Day? Let the great poets, writers, and thinkers share their thoughts
Language, Literature, Poetry, Shakespeare

KC Connection: Locomotion
A foster child uses poetry to cope with his troubled past
Playwrights & Plays, Literature, Poetry, Theater

Lesson: Set a Poem to Music
After exploring a “singable” picture book as a class, each student examines a personally selected poem for rhythm to determine its musical meter.
Music, Poetry, Young Artists

Lesson: The Poetics of Hip Hop
Students will analyze form in Shakespearean sonnets and hip hop music
Hip Hop, Poetry, Popular Culture

Lesson: Mountain Creation: A Drama Exploration
After examining a poem about mountain creation from a Native American perspective and watching a scientifically-accurate film about mountain formation.
Nature, Poetry, Native America, Science

Lesson: You Too Can Haiku
This lesson will introduce students to the Japanese poetic form called haiku
Asia, Poetry, Japan

Lesson: Jazz Music, Dance, and Poetry
In this lesson, students will be introduced to jazz dance and jazz music. They will explore basic jazz dance movements, and will create a cinquain poem inspired by jazz music.
Dance, Jazz, Music, Poetry

Arts Quotes: Rudyard Kipling
"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."
Literature, Poetry, India

Arts Quotes: Henry David Thoreau
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined."
America, Literature, Poetry, Nature

Arts Quotes: John Updike
"What art offers is space -- a certain breathing room for the spirit."
America, Literature, Poetry

Arts Quotes: Simonides
"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks."
Greece, Poetry, Visual Arts

Arts Quotes: William Shakespeare
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
Europe, Literature, Poetry, Playwrights & Plays

Arts Quotes: Simonides
"Dancing is silent poetry."
Greece, Poetry, Dance

Arts Quotes: George Santayana
"Music contains a whole gamut of experience, from sensuous elements to ultimate intellectual harmonies."
Europe, Literature, Poetry

Arts Quotes: William Shakespeare
"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
Europe, Literature, Poetry, Playwrights & Plays

Arts Quotes: Confucius
"Let a man be stimulated by poetry, established by the rules of propriety, and perfected by music."
China, Folklore, Poetry, Music

Arts Quotes: S.T. Coleridge
"How inimitably graceful children are in general -- before they learn to dance."
Poetry, Literature, Dance

Arts Quotes: Charles Baudelaire
"Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals."
Dance, Europe, Literature, Poetry

Arts Quotes: W.H. Auden
"Dance till the stars come down from the rafters. Dance, Dance, Dance till you drop."
Dance, Literature, Poetry