8th Grade Language Arts

Unit: Bringing Poetic Stories to Life

Daily Lesson Plan: Day 1 (Full Lesson)
Daily Lesson Objective: Students will be introduced to a new poetry form
and will be able identify a free verse poem and spoken word poem
Daily Formative Assessment:
Complete Three Things I Know To Be True assignment after watching B by
Sarah Kay
Materials Needed:
Pen/pencil
Journal
PowerPoint
Access to YouTube
Brown Girl Rising
Unit Vocabulary list
Activities:
1. Start class by handing out journals, calendar with important dates and
reading timeline, and vocabulary list.
5 minutes
2. Open up Bringing Poetic Stories to Life PowerPoint. Tell them they will
be starting a unit on poetry and show them the unit objectives (slide
3). Then show them materials (slide 4) they will need at every class.
3 minutes
3. Slide 5 will say Poetry Is and the students will then shout out things
they associate with poetry. The teacher will type them into the
PowerPoint. After they are finished discuss the different things the said
with them.
6 minutes
4. For the next two slides, you will talk about spoken word with them.
Take a quick survey of who has heard about or listened to spoken word
before you start. This should be done by a quick show of hands. Give
them a brief overview of the history of spoken word. Then, move on to
talk about free verse and how spoken word falls under this form. Give
them time to write the definition on their vocabulary sheet.
5 minutes
5. Hand students the lyrics to B by Sarah Kay. Have them read over it
for a few minutes and ask them how they like the poem and what they
think it would sound like in spoken word form.

6.
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5 minutes
Show them Sarah Kays quote and then play B for them. Stop at the
5:38 mark.
6 minutes
Discuss poem and then have them do the Three Things You Know to
Be True assignment.
10 minutes
Briefly go over the poems they will be writing for the poetry project.
2 minutes
Hand out Brown Girl Rising and briefly give them an overview of the
book. Let them know that their homework is to read to page 24 and to
start thinking about what poems they want to write.
8 minutes

Accommodations:
Student A Make sure she is able to write down the vocabulary word
and have enough time for the assignment. She can turn in the assignment at
the end of class if she needs to.
Student B Remind her to bring Brown Girl Rising back the next day.