Trick or Treat your ELA students with these three spooky season poetry lessons. Discover the poetic “tricks” that poets use to create mystery and creepiness to their writing. The treat part comes at the end–a fun, creative brain break activity.

Is your class studying Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” this spooky season? It’s perfect for this time of year, isn’t it? But if you are looking for an alternative to “The Raven”, something shorter or simply different, I have three engaging spooky season poetry lessons  you’ll enjoy and learn from, too. 

These three spooky season poetry lessons cover many of the same figurative language usages and standards you’ll study with “The Raven”. In fact, starting with these three poems might prepare students for reading and analyzing Poe’s poem. Each spooky season poem lesson starts of course, with annotation. It’s when you bring all three poems together, however, that students really dive into the language. Make sure you read to the end to see how it all comes together and to grab your Spooky Season Poetry Analysis Graphic Organizer.

Let me introduce the poems, then I’ll give you the lessons. 

“This Place is Haunted” by Richard Jones

“This Place is Haunted” is the perfect poem for Halloween time. The title says it all, right? 

The poem offers great use of imagery, sensory detail, and personification to set a specific tone. Students might also see some allusions to familiar texts. For example, many students who have read Romeo and Juliet see allusions in the mention of “gloomy vaults”, “ancient battles” “star-crossed lovers”, “curses”, and “mortal footsteps” fearing to go. Remember the cowardly Friar Lawrence repeating, “I dare no longer stay. I dare no longer stay”? The “sunken tombs” remind others of “The Cask of Amontillado”.

“The Hand of Glory: The Nurse’s Story” by Richard Harris Barham (first 18 lines)

“The Hand of Glory: The Nurse’s Story” is truly one creepy poem. It will put the “OO” in spOOky season, for sure. 

Feel free to use the entire poem, but I warn you, it is lengthy and difficult for modern students to comprehend. I’m never one to shy away from a challenge, but this lesson is a quick peek into poetry, not a sustained study. 

The first eighteen lines of “The Hand of Glory” uses mysterious description that, on the surface, simply describes a scary place on a dark and stormy night. Because of that mysterious tone, students will have fun interpreting meaning. For example, does the pronoun her refer to the moon or an unnamed female out on the moor or both? Also, is the moon tipping the “baleful objects” with light or tipping off the murderers to the presence of this female? Are the three murderers the ones being hanged or the ones doing the hanging? 

Also, what about the title? Most students won’t have any idea that a hand of glory is a candle made from the hand of a villain who has been hanged as punishment for his crimes. They interpret glory to mean something spiritual or something braggadocious. 

After the entire 3 Spooky Seasons Poetry Lessons are in the Halloween bag, it’s fun to share Vincent Price’s reading of a recipe for creating a hand of glory. You can find it on YouTube. It’s also a good time to reveal the rest of the poem either in its original form or summary. 

“Enter This Deserted House” by Shel Silverstein

“Enter This Deserted House” by Shel Silverstein seems a bit elementary compared to the first to spooky season poems. However, Silverstein’s poem is genius in revealing the oncoming of madness. Tracking the imagery and use of onomatopoeia adds to the creep factor. Directly addressing the reader at the end of the poem is like the last frog leg dropped in the caldron. Visions of “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven” boil up.  

Please excuse my use of all caps here, but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND LISTENING TO THE YOUTUBE READING OF THIS POEM BY THE POET to enhance the understanding of descent into madness. 

My experience is that students stay engaged when lessons are not too drawn out, so here are three quick spooky season lesson plans. (Tip: you can use the basic idea with any two or three related poems.)

Follow these easy steps for each poem in the order I listed them in this blog post.

Step 1: Annotate. Always. 

For the first read, students will annotate for tone. Circle all emotion-packed words, phrases, and images. Circling or marking of any sort is a waste of time and energy without commentary. Anything worth marking is worth noting. Students should label the feelings associated with marked words. They can do so with synonyms, emotions, definitions, or even what the word/phrase/image reminds them of. This annotation answers how the poet creates the tone. 

For the second read, students should annotate what is happening in each stanza. This approach to annotation helps students understand the surface meaning of the poem. Note: There is nothing wrong with enjoying a poem at surface level. 

For the third read, students should label figurative language, noting how the uses of personification, sensory detail, onomatopoeia, repetition,  imagery, and other poetic devices impact the reading experience. During this step, ask students to also note any part of the poem that might remind them of other stories or poems. 

Class Discussion: Use brief class discussion, shoulder partners, or small group talk after each read, encouraging students to add to their annotations. Have students share with the class the tone for each poem and how it was created, the “plot” for each poem, and the most interesting uses of figurative language.

If you feel you must, you can assess student’s understanding of these elements. However, it really is okay to have quick, guided discussion without a formal assessment. Spooky poetry is the perfect poetry to study with a fun analysis activity rather than a formal assessment.

Fun Analysis Activity: Rather than assigning a traditional analysis essay or paragraph, use the Spooky Season Poetry Lessons graphic organizer to answer the following prompt: 

Are the settings of “The Hand of Glory” and “Enter This Deserted House” haunted? 

Use “This Place is Haunted” as the basis to form your claim. The speaker in this poem lays out the criteria for haunted places. Use his claim to prove your answer for the other two poems. The analysis can be done individually, in pairs, or groups. Decide how you want the analysis to be presented. 

• Written paragraphs to practice proper evidence inclusion and citation. 
• Flowchart to practice logical appeals and reasoning.
• Public Service Announcement Warning to practice writing to a specific audience. 

Time for the Treat (AKA Brain Break Activity):

The final step in the spooky season poetry lesson is a real treat. Just  like the poems can be enjoyed at the surface and deeper levels, this step can be appreciated for the brain-break activity that it is and as another level of interpretation. 

This step is simply coloring. There’s a trick to this treat, though. Students will each color or illustrate only two lines of a poem. 

• Print the poems and cut into strips, dividing the poems every two lines.
• Hand a blank notecard and a strip of poetry to each student. 
• On the card, students will illustrate whatever is written in the two lines. 
• Students can write the lines of poetry on the card or paste them. 
• Reassemble the poem in a quilt, collage, or clothesline form. 
• That’s it. 

Creating an illustration is a great way to interact with any text. The spookiness of these poems adds to the fun of this interactive lesson. When students determine colors, images, and shapes for their illustrations, they are interpreting the poem. BONUS: You also now have some spiffy, spooky room decor. 

Another twist to this tricky treat is to have students write their lines on the back of the card and then try to reassemble the poem as a class without looking at the lines, only at the side of the card with the images. The class will have to go back to the original text and try to match images with imagery. 

Let me know how these three spooky season poetry lessons work for you. Also, please share with us your favorite spooky season poems. We’d love to know all your teacher tricks–and treats. 

DOWNLOAD YOUR SPOOKY SEASON POETRY LESSONS GRAPHIC ORGANIZER HERE.