Poetry is still a hot subject in 6th grade! Poems can still be engaging and fun for your students. Sixth grade takes on a few more serious common core standards, but that doesn't take away from the importance socially and emotionally for your students.
Sixth grade is a time when students are beginning to really create their own poems and analyze poems intricately. Help students understand poems and the structure of different poems.
We've created a list of all the different styles of poetry! Hitting literary elements along with poetic structures. You'll find something on this list for even your most difficult students.
1. Ode to My Shoes By: Francisco X. Alarcon
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
2. The Walrus and the Carpenter By: Lewis Carroll
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
3. Lend a Hand By: Anonymous
Learn more: Poem Hunter
4. Amazing Grace By: John Newton
Learn more: Poem Hunter
5. My Excuse By: Kenn Nesbitt
Learn more: Poetry 4 Kids
6. Keep A-Pluggin' Away By: Paul Laurence Dunbar
Learn more: Your Daily Poem
7. The Sidewalk Racer By: Lillian Morrison
Learn more: Blue Sky Big Dreams
8. My Friend By: Ella Wheeler
Learn more: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
9. Oranges By: Gary Soto
Learn more: Ed Helper
10. The Raven By: Edgar Allen Poe
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
11. Fernando the Fearless By: Kenn Nesbitt
Learn more: Poetry 4 Kids
12. Willow and Ginkgo By: Eve Marriam
Learn more: Cor Kwant
13. I Hear America Singing By: Walt Whitman
Learn more: Poets.org
14. I, Too By: Langston Hughes
Learn more: Poets.org
15. The Road Not Taken By: Robert Frost
Learn more: Poem Hunter
16. The Brown Thrush By: Lucy Larcom
Learn more: Lit 2 Go
17. The Sandpiper By: Celia Thaxter
Learn more: Poem Hunter
18. Melvin the Mummy By: Kenn Nesbitt
Learn more: Poetry 4 Kids
19. My. Nobody By: Anonymous
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
20. The Wind By: Robert Louis Stevenson
Learn more: Your Daily Poem
21. Jabberwocky By: Lewis Carroll
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
22. A House, A Home By: Lorraine M. Halli
Learn more: English For Students
23. Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore By: William Brighty Rands
Learn more: Victorian Web
24. When We Two Parted By: George Gordon Byron
Learn more: Poets.org
25. The Charge of the Light Brigade By: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
26. The Brook By: Lord Alfred Tennyson
Learn more: Education with Fun
27. A Strange Old Man Fell Out of Bed By: Kenn Nesbitt
Learn more: Poetry 4 Kids
28. Contentment By: Edward Dyer
Learn more: Discover Poetry
29. Nothing Gold Can Stay By: Robert Frost
Learn more: Poets.org
30. There Are Birds Here By: Jamaal May
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
31. We Wear the Mask By: Paul Laurence Dunbar
Learn more: Daily Poetry
32. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House By: Billy Collins
Learn more: Lyrik Line
33. The Inchcape Rock By: Robert Southey
Learn more: All Poetry
34. Still I Rise By: Maya Angelou
Learn more: Poetry Foundation
35. So You Want to Be a Writer? By: Charles Bukowski
Learn more: Poets.org
Conclusion
There are so many reasons to include Poetry in your classroom. Here's a list of some great poems to create lessons with and bring to your students. They are fun, engaging and will surely promote reading, speaking, and listening skills.
These short texts will feel much less intimidating than a novel would. Making less of a focus on the actual reading, but rather on comprehension. Students should see reading as an enjoyable activity you can make that happen through poetry!
Take all of these amazing poems into consideration, read them yourself, look up some activities. The good news is most of these already have activities out there.
32 Adorable 5th Grade Poems