Poetry Video Lessons for National Poetry Month
Help your students cultivate a love for words and an appreciation of poetry with these Edpuzzle Original video lessons for National Poetry Month.
Illustration by Edpuzzle Staff
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs
(Love’s Labor’s Lost, Act IV, Scene III, lines 340-341)
What better way to begin National Poetry Month than with some words from the bard himself, William Shakespeare?
In fact, in addition to National Poetry Month, April is also Shakespeare's birth month. His birthday was April 23, 1564, and he coincidentally died on the same day in 1616.
Other famous poets born in April include Maya Angelou, William Wordsworth, Seamus Heaney, and Etheridge Knight.
Bring poetry to life with these Edpuzzle Original video lessons including an intro to poetry, plus a deep dive on three famous poems!
Video Lesson: What is Poetry?
This lesson answers the question, “What is Poetry?” by exploring the many things poems can do and forms they can take.
Video length: 6 mins. 20 secs.
Students will explore a poem about freedom painted on the Berlin Wall, Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem “Jabberwocky,” and shape poetry.
Video Lessons on Shakespeare's Sonnets
Did you know that William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets throughout his lifetime? Dive into the Bard’s famous sonnets with these Edpuzzle Originals!
In this lesson, students will analyze the use of simile and irony in William Shakespeare’s poem “Sonnet 130.”
Video length: 7 mins. 38 secs.
The next video lesson explores imagery, metaphor, and theme in Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73.”
Video length: 7 mins. 45 secs.
“The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman: A Video Lesson
When Amanda Gorman recited her poem at the 2021 presidential inauguration, she made poetry accessible to a whole new generation.
In this lesson, students will analyze the use of alliteration and symbolism in an excerpt from Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb."
Video length: 8 mins. 44 secs.
A Robert Frost Video Lesson
This lesson begins with an illustrated, animated reading of the poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” by Robert Frost.
Video length: 7 mins. 45 secs.
It highlights the devices, or language tools, of metaphor and personification within the poem.
A Sara Teasdale Video Lesson
Pullitzer Prize-winning poet Sara Teasdale explores the themes of war and nature in her 1918 poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains.”
In this video lesson, students will analyze the use of imagery, repetition, and theme.
Video length: 7 mins. 25 secs.
A Langston Hughes Video Lesson
This lesson leads students in an analysis of the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, focusing on how Hughes uses diction, imagery, theme, and the extended metaphor of a staircase that represents a life.
Video length: 7 mins. 25 secs.
Your students will learn that a poem’s meaning can be found in its theme, or a big-picture statement it makes about a universal truth.
A William Wordsworth Video Lesson
Explore the use of tone, paradox, and theme in William Wordsworth’s poem “My Heart Leaps Up” in this Edpuzzle Originals poetry video lesson.
Video length: 7 mins. 13 secs.
Emily Dickinson Video Lessons
Emily Dickinson had a moment with the TV show, “Dickinson.” Engage your students with this video lesson on her poem, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.”
Video length: 6 mins. 23 secs.
The lesson explores the technique of zoomorphism, when a writer gives animal-like characteristics to something that isn’t an animal.
The video lesson also has a strong SEL component as it focuses on hope, and invites students to reflect on a difficult time in their life and consider if hope helped them through that time.
For more Emily Dickinson poetry, the Edpuzzle Original video lesson on her poem, "They shut me up in Prose–" teaches students about the use of figurative language, punctuation, and capitalization.
Video length: 8 mins. 15 secs.
And finally, in the video lesson lesson on Emily Dickinson’s poem “There is no Frigate like a Book,” students will analyze the use of metaphor, diction, and theme.
Video length: 7 mins. 9 secs.
A John Donne Video Lesson
English metaphysical poet John Donne’s 1633 poem, “Death, be not proud” is the quintessential example of personification in poetry. Students will also dive into the themes of tone and irony in this video lesson.
Video length: 7 mins. 38 secs.
So this April, make some time to teach poetry! In the words of Dead Poets Society’s legendary teacher, John Keating:
We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.