Sample Lessons

The Poetry Rocks Schools Method

We begin with the words of the great poets that are taught in middle and high schools across the country. Our creative team transforms these poems into catchy songs with videos for streaming in the classroom. Our educators then develop Play Books, comprehensive lesson plan guides that include historical context, relevant themes, and activities for engaging students with enough flexibility for cross-curriculum implementation.

Our format empowers teachers to engage students on a familiar & ever-changing cultural level. Teachers do not need musical skill/talent to use our lesson plans and music. Our songs and videos accompany and complement standards-based lesson plans with a simple, yet dynamic concept: make poetry more accessible by translating it into a familiar medium for students.

We started with poems and now have lessons covering other literary works. Our approach is designed for use for subjects as diverse as math, science and social studies as we expand our offerings.

Poem: Poison Tree
Author: William Blake
Grades: 11-12
Musical Style(s): Classic Rock, Hard Rock

Students discuss what themes are carried in the music and poem, the romantic age, with forays into music, history and art classes (cross-curricular), and relating the poem to the author’s life and period – even studying his life in order to guess who the poem may have been written about.

Play

Literary Work: There Is No Remedy For Love
Author:  Henry David Thoreau
Grades: 9-12
Musical Style(s): Pop, Melodic Rock

This lesson plan includes cross-curricular activities with science, math, psychology, history, communications and art. Students explore the impact, relevance and themes of Transcendentalism through creative essays and philosophical debate.

To an athlete dying young cover image for song video sample.
Play

Literary Work: To An Athlete Dying Young
Author:  A.E. Housman
Grades: 9-12
Musical Style(s): Country

This video uses A.E. Housman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young” to engage students with the emotional shifts that happen from young athlete to post-glory days to dying.

    We made the poems and put them into songs. We also put in any kind of background music in it to see what we liked. And so now we are in groups and singing some stanzas in the poems.

    Hamilton (4th grade)
    Holy Family

    Poetry Rocks made my love for poetry much more intense. It also improved my understanding of the difference between poetry and songwriting.

    Courim (9-12th grades)
    Chaney VPA/STEM

    At first I thought it was just going to be another boring poetry lesson. I did like how the person who wrote the song lyrics to the poem matched it with a certain rhythm that made it more interesting.

    via Mrs.Devlin (10th grade)
    Ursuline High School

Sample Lesson Plan

A_Poison_Tree-Lesson_Plan-Level_11-12_CC_(2025)

Sample Units (Poem, Song, Video and Lesson Plan)

General Poetry

Songs/Poems include:
Poison Tree (Blake)
First Fig (St. Vincent Millay)
Acquainted With the Night (Frost)

Introduction to Thoreau

Songs/Poems include:
I Went Down to the Woods
There is No Remedy for Love
It’s Not What You Look at That Matters

Introduction to Shakespeare

Songs/Poems include:
Sonnet 29
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth