How to Use This Book

The Poetry Friday Anthology includes a poem a week for the whole school year (6-8) with curriculum connections provided for each poem, each week, each grade level. Just five minutes every “Poetry Friday” will reinforce key skills in reading and language arts such as rhyme, repetition, rhythm, alliteration, etc. Here you’ll find:

•    36 original poems for Sixth Grade (with mini-lessons for each poem)
•    36 original poems for Seventh Grade (with mini-lessons for each poem)
•    36 original poems for Eighth Grade (with mini-lessons for each poem)


That's a poem a week every week from August through May!

However, since it’s March and not August, we offer three alternative ways to use this book this year.

1.    Choose your desired grade level (6, 7, or 8), open the book and start with the poem for Week 1 of your grade level. Then continue sharing a poem every Friday until the end of the school year. You won’t use all the poems in the book, but you’ll share plenty of new poems and build a dozen key poetry skills or more. (Then in August, you can start again with Week 1 and use ALL the poems across the school year.)

2.     Choose your desired grade level (6, 7, or 8) and look for Week 27. Share the poem and activities you find there. Why Week 27? That’s where your colleagues in grades K-5 will be, if they are also using The Poetry Friday Anthology (K-5). This way you can maximize connections across all the grades with all the students experiencing poems on the same theme, one theme per week.

3.    Or focus your energies on a big splash for National Poetry Month. Choose your desired grade level (6, 7, or 8), open the book and start with the poem for Week 1 of your grade level. Then continue sharing a poem every DAY, instead of one per week. That’s 22 poems for 22 weekdays in the month of April. Then keep sharing the rest of the poems, one every Friday (or more often) till the end of the school year.