Emily Dickinson Lesson Plan: Craft and Structure

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Emily Dickinson Lesson Plan. 

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Emily Dickinson, and supports the standard of analyzing the impact of a literary device on a poem. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

• What’s a poem you’ve read or heard that you’ve enjoyed? What about it did you enjoy?
• What makes poetry different from other genres?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

• Read the description on the Emily Dickinson topic page.
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
• Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles: “Way Back When,” Etc.” or “Quirky Stuff. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
  

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign the Emily Dickinson Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about Emily Dickinson while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie: Produce an animation of one of Dickinson’s poems. Use images and sounds to illustrate your interpretation of its poetic devices, including similes, metaphors, slant rhyme, and meter. 
• Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying samples of different poetic devices that Dickinson uses. 
• Creative Coding: Code a meme symbolizing elements of Emily Dickinson’s poetic style. 
• Primary Source: Read the poem by Emily Dickinson and cite details to answer accompanying questions.

More to Explore

Sortify: Writers Challenge players to categorize writers by attributes, such as genre, time period, and more in this sorting game.  

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of poetry with these topics: Figurative Language, Similes and Metaphors, and Maya Angelou. 

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.