Ekphrastic Poem Writing Lesson
Lesson Plan
1 hourGrades6, 7, 8English Language Arts
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Written by Dan Castrigano
About this lesson
This lesson features powerful imagery from the climate crisis. Students choose one photograph and write an ekphrastic poem about that photograph.
Inquire: Teacher facilitates a brief discussion using a photograph of the California wildfires in 2020.
Investigate: Students review photographs related to the climate crisis from Climate Visuals Gallery. Students select one photograph and write an ekphrastic poem about that photograph.
Inspire: Students share their poems with the rest of the class.
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Everything you need to teach it
How to edit these materials (video)Teaching tips
Suggestions
- Teachers should be sensitive to the emotions of students. Some of these photographs may remind them of personal loss or some other specific connection to the climate crisis.
- Students can highlight specific poetic devices in their poems, such as rhyme scheme and meter. Additionally, students can highlight literary devices associated with sound, such as alliteration, assonance, and consonance.
- Students can highlight specific figurative language, such as simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, imagery, and symbolism. Alternatively, students can write two different poems using the same photo but highlight two different uses of figurative language.
- Students can focus on exploring sound devices to enhance tone and mood, such as using internal rhyme, repetition, and cadence.
- Students can compare two photographs and write contrasting poems for each.
- Depending on time and classroom context, students can engage in established classroom writing workshops or peer review, a round of editing, and a final poem to submit as an assessment.
- Teachers can use pre-established rubrics for assessing writing.
Prerequisites
- Before teaching the lesson, type your students' names into Slide 19 of the Student Slideshow.
- Make sure that all students have editing access to the Student Slideshow.
- Students may feel anger, anxiety, sadness, despair, fear, hope, or even excitement when viewing these pictures, writing their poems, or hearing their classmates’ poems. These emotions are normal and natural. Make sure students know it is OK to feel and express these emotions when confronted with the realities of the climate crisis and potential solutions to the crisis.
- The information available for each image is varied. There is a lot of information about some of the photographs, but others do not have that much information.
- If teachers are collecting or using student poems as an assessment, teachers should decide on a rubric to share with students.
Differentiation
- Students can use the “Ideas For Your Poem” on the slideshow if they have trouble starting.
- Students can use a list of imagery and sensory words to help them “show” rather than “tell” what the photo is conveying.
- Advanced classes can highlight specific poetic devices to practice, such as rhyme and meter, enjambment and caesura, anaphora and epistrophe.
- Advanced classes can focus on classic poetry styles. Students can choose to write their ekphrastic poems as a villanelle, sestina, pantoum, sonnet, or ballad. Additionally, students can explore shorter structured poetic forms such as haiku, tanka, cinquain, or limerick.
- Students can experiment with form and structure, such as free verse or concrete poetry.
- Some students may know of other climate-related photos that they’d like to use. Encourage students to use those photographs if they make sense in the context of the lesson.
From the scientist review
This lesson introduces students to social-emotional learning and how to use ekphrastic poetry to write about an artwork. It also contains photography depicting impacts of pollution, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis for students to analyze, share their thoughts, and communicate their climate solutions. This lesson has satisfied the science review process, and it is recommended for teaching.
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About the teacher writer
Dan Castrigano
Academic Teacher at Burlington YouthBuild
Dan Castrigano taught STEM and humanities at elementary, middle, and high schools for 11 years. From 2021-2023, he served as the Chief Content Officer at SubjectToClimate. Dan advocates for climate education and organizes for climate, social, and racial justice.
