Valentine’s Day Activities for Secondary ELA

Write and Read (Laura)

Jan 7, 20222 min read

Updated: 21 minutes ago

Bold, navy text says, "Valentine's Day Activities for Secondary ELA." Two red, heart shaped suckers sit on a aqua background.

Elementary students shouldn’t be the only ones having fun on Valentine’s Day. You can have your secondary students celebrate too, and you don’t have to ditch your ELA standards to do it. Check out these Valentine’s Day activities your middle and high school English classes will love.

Conversation Hearts Poetry

Bring poetry to life with a paper version of the Valentine’s Day candy all your students know: conversation hearts! This conversation hearts poetry activity has two poem tasks, one all about love and one for the kids who just aren’t feelin’ it. It's a fun, engaging twist on poetry.

Character Dating Profile

Character dating profiles give students a chance to be creative with character analysis. This activity works with any piece of fiction. Your students will complete a dating profile while considering a character's personality and motivations. This analysis activity requires students to read closely, make inferences, and support answers with textual evidence. Character analysis doesn’t get more engaging than this!

Speed Dating Poetry

Speed dating poetry is fast paced fun that gets students out of their seats and interacting with one another. This poetry challenge is sure to bring on some laughs. While some students write poems all about love, their “dates” write poems criticizing love. They’ve never written poetry like this before, and they will have a blast! Thank you @englishteacherish for sharing a picture of your classroom set up for speed dating poetry.