Poetry in Middle School

Dr. Sylvia Vardell is a professor of children’s literature in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University and the 2014 recipient of the Scholastic Library Publishing Award. In this interview, she talks about her recent collaboration with Janet Wong to compile the Poetry Friday Anthology series for elementary school, middle school, and science topics; ideas for using poetry across the curriculum; and reasons that teachers may be reluctant to teach poetry.