Poems and Lesson Plans for Back to School

August 2023

As the summer ends and a new school year begins, share the following poems for back-to-school, and browse more kid-friendly poems:

“Give Yourself Some Flowers” by Marcus Amaker
“The Creative Drive” by Catherine Barnett
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks
“& After the Power Came Back” by Brenda Hillman
“The World Book” by Patricia Hooper
“Breaking Free” by Stuart Kestenbaum
“The Testing-Tree” by Stanley Kunitz
“Nonsense Alphabet” by Edward Lear
“The Sentence” by Nathan McClain
“Apples” by Grace Schulman
“Tall Ideas” by Adam Wolfond

Bring poetry into your classroom with the following lesson plans for introducing poetry:

“The Creative Drive” by Catherine Barnett
“On How to Use this Book” by Sarah Gambito
“the poem is a dream telling you its time” by Marwa Helal
“Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish
“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely [Mahalia Jackson is a genius.]” by Claudia Rankine
“T he Hand” by Mary Ruefle

Teach This Poem returns on September 4. Produced for K-12 educators, Teach This Poem features one poem a week, accompanied by interdisciplinary primary sources and activities designed to help teachers quickly and easily bring poetry into the classroom.

Sign up and get a new lesson plan every Monday. Br owse more than three hundred past lessons, and check out the five most popular lessons from the 2022–23 school year:

“June Sunset” By Sarojini Naidu
“Moonlily” by Marilyn Nelson
“Reflections” by Ameen Rihani
“Once the Magnolia has Blossomed” by Ed Roberson
“Sea Of The Poem (An Annex So We May Dream Backwards)” by Raquel Salas Rivera

Summer: Poems for Kids

S chool: Poems for Kids

Competing with teams across the globe, Houston’s official youth poetry slam team, Meta-Four Houston, won the international youth poetry slam, Brave New Voices 2023. This is the first time Houston secured the coveted title. Outspoken Bean (Houston’s Poet Laureate Emeritus) and Alinda Mac (Meta-Four alumna and Writers in the Schools writer) coached the six teen poets. Read more about the team’s victory.

On Saturday, May 20, former Texas poet laureate and 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow Cyrus Cassells honored the winners of What Juneteenth Means (To Me), a poetry contest for Texas students in grades eight through twelve that encourages exploration of the events that make Juneteenth such a significant holiday.

Read the first-place winner Samiyah Green’s poem, “The Pantoum,” in the July/August issue of the The Texas Observer.

Teachers, thank you for your work in bringing poetry into the classroom year-round. We’re happy to be able to offer hundreds of free lesson plans, essays, and other resources, and we wish you and your students health and safety.

The Academy of American Poets

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Poems and Lesson Plans for Back to School

Older messages

"Standing Dead" by Andrea Abi-Karam

"Rhythms (Section I)" by Charles Reznikoff

"Moon Tonight" by Gwendolyn Bennett

"Ode to Donor Gametes" by Robin Silbergleid

"August / sunlight in your hair"

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