Description
Push students to write, revise, and publish multiple slam poems with this packed Slam Poetry Unit. Lesson plans built around thematically-curated, school-appropriate slam poems will challenge students’ notions of poetry AND identity, encouraging them to use their voice and powerful poetic techniques to speak up for what is right and tell their story.
The unit provides enough guidance, lesson plans, and materials for teachers to teach without hours of prep, while still leaving room for students to determine their own topics, audience, poetic devices to learn, and method of publication–choice that will create authentic learning tasks, as well as create a classroom culture that is student-led.
This unit consists of over 160 pages for a 3-4 week slam poetry unit, with the following break-down:
-35 pages of detailed lesson plans
-110 Slide Powerpoint
-19 pages of handouts for scaffolding and integrated assessment
-Link to specially curated slam poetry videos, along with places online to find transcripts
Each lesson plan includes:
-CCSS Standards
-Content Objectives
-Language Objectives–especially useful for your Emergent Multilinguals (ELLs), but benefits all students
-Mini-lesson–plan and slides
-Work-time–plan and slides
-Share-time–plan and slides
-Ideas for formative assessment
Each day’s slides includes:
-Do Now
-Objectives–both content and language
-Visuals for mini-lesson
-Sentence stems to aid student discussion
SO excited to release this unit to you!
Note: This unit plan is a BUNDLE that includes:
–Peer Feedback Lesson Plan
–Slam Poetry MINI-Unit
-Over 100 pages of other resources exclusive to this product
I would love to see this unit plan put to good use. Your students will love watching and writing slam poetry–every year I have students begging for more.
Looking something smaller to put into your current poetry unit?
You might prefer my Slam Poetry MINI-Unit, found here! It includes 5 lesson plans taking students through writing and performing one slam poem and is designed to fit into a larger unit.
If you purchase this product, I ask that you please respect the Terms of Use by leaving an honest review of this product so that I might help more teachers and students like you and yours!
You can also purchase this product through my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.
Sarah E. –
I wish I could give this unit TEN STARS! I bought this unit to supplement my end-of-the-year, post-state-test kiddos who would rather be ANYWHERE but at school. I have never seen my middle schoolers so engaged! During the writing prompts, you could hear a pin drop in my room. It’s absolutely incredible.
The lesson plans are a perfect blend of concise and thorough. The subject matter is incredibly important and has gotten me closer to my students than ever before this school year. We have important conversations about race, gender, stereotypes, and assumptions, so I know there’s important social-emotional learning going on.
I highly recommend this resource to anyone who wants to make a cultural shift happen in their room, or give their students a HIGHLY engaging 2-3 week unit. I can’t thank you enough for such a lovely resource!
ONE CAVEAT: Many of these poems are not middle school appropriate, and if you have students watch videos via google classroom, there’s no way to censor the poems. That can make it tricky. If your students have the maturity, however, it’s a perfect unit for engagement.
Jeanne Wolz –
I can’t tell you how much this review means! Thank you so much for letting me know! If I could have made a list of deeper goals I had for this unit, you hit them on the head, and it means the world to hear it translated. I hope you have a blast in your performances and make some lasting memories.
Thanks also for making a note about the poems—I’m putting together an alternative list for teachers, which will be added soon and available for all.
Thanks so much again!
Becky Z –
WOW. JUST WOW. SO IMPACTFUL! Just what I was looking for. It’s deep, but it’s inspiring my kids to dig deep instead of just meeting a list of requirements. LOVE THIS SO MUCH.