Middle School Reading Lesson Plan For Poetry: “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou
All lesson plans are free. Best aligned to CC RL 7.2 or RL 8.2.
Maya Angelou was an acclaimed poet, activist, and teacher. As a civil rights activist, Angelou worked for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and awarded over 50 honorary degrees before her death. She died in 2014 at the age of 86.
Angelou is one of my favorite teacher figures, one of those rare “teachers” in the truest sense of the word.
Her birthday is coming up on April 4.
This is the lesson plan outline I have used with different cohorts of middle school students for Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman.”
Daily Question
The daily question of the lesson plan can be written or scaffolded in different ways for middle school students.
Option 1: How does Maya Angelou communicate that the speaker is “phenomenal” in her poem?
Option 2: Which poetic techniques does Maya Angelou use to communicate that the speaker is phenomenal?
Students answer this daily question by stating the central idea of the poem and…
