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This post of the continuation of The Poet X Part 2.
Lessons for Part 3 of The Poet X
Day 1
Because my timing was so off this year, I didn’t get to finish all of The Poet X before winter break, so I wrapped up part 2 of The Poet X before winter break and then had to restart the book when we returned. I knew we would have to do a thorough review before moving forward so I dragged the kids through this Nearpod. (These are the original Google slides so that you can copy & edit).
Day 2
“Silent World” to “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”
Today I started by asking kids to recall what we did last class and to review some of the characters and plot twists in their mind, and then we started listening to part three of The Poet X. I played them a BUNCH of pages (at least 30), and at the time, I was concerned that it was too much, but it was fine. We listened to “Silent World” to “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” and then completed this visual collage where students had to identify five important moments for the day’s reading, choose images to represent them, and then label them. After I gave them the directions, some kids got it and then others needed a template so I made them this.
Day 3
"Isabelle” through "The Mic is Open"
For today’s opening/icebreaker, my co-teacher and I asked the kids to put the name of a club they are part of or that they would like to join in the chat. The prompt specifically was: “What clubs are you a part of at school, and if you are not part of a club, what club do you wish we had at school?”
We asked them this because in Part 3, Xiomara finally decides to attend poetry club, where she meets some new characters. I used these slides to briefly introduce the characters to my students.
We then listened to pages "Isabelle" through "The Mic is Open" (255-280 in the book).
For the post-reading activity, I asked kids to complete a journal on Canvas. This was the prompt I used:
Choose 1 and respond in at least 100-150 words:
What is something that you would like to do or try? What is preventing you from doing it? How does this connect to Xiomara?
What is something that you waited a long time to try/do and then actually accomplished? How did it feel? How does this connect to Xiomara?
Day 4
“Invitation”- “The Waiting Game”
Today we started with “Character Bingo” to review the characters thus far. If I was on top of my game (which I am not), I would have made the Bingo chart for the kids (but I didn’t). This year, I gave the kids the list of characters in The Poet X, told them to sloppily draw a 5 x 5 grid on a sheet of scrap paper, and fill the character names in the blanks. After about 35 minutes, everyone was ready to go.
To play, I would describe a character from the book, and then the kids would have to cross off the name of the character that they thought I was referring to. Whomever got Bingo first had to read out their answers so that we could check and review. The winner got bonus points on the next quiz. I would post notes for you to use, but I must have done this all off the top of my head because I have no other notes on my unit plan other than “play character bingo.” I guess I was having a tired week.
After character Bingo, we listened to “Invitation” - “The Waiting Game”
-Once we listened to the section, I asked the kids to write their own concrete poem about something that makes them very happy. Here were the directions:
Get a sheet of scrap paper
Create a concrete poem about something that makes you happy. The poem should be about why the thing makes you happy.
Take a picture of your concrete poem and submit it to Canvas.
When they didn’t respond, I quickly drew a poem about dogs in the shape of a “dog” and held it up to the camera. Even though the kids wanted to pretend they hadn’t heard me assign this, they completed it and I got some of my favorite responses of the year.
Day 5
“The Good”- “My Mother Tries to Grab Me”
To start today’s lesson, I had the students write about a what a good day at school looks like. I gave them 10 minutes to write and submit to Canvas. They did not have to worry about punctuation or anything else.
In the next section of The Poet X, Xiomara is feeling good, and as a reader, you just feel that something bad is about to happen. I wanted to tune the kids into this, so before we started reading, I asked them to predict what might go wrong. I created a brief Google form with two questions:
What is your name?
What is one bad thing that you predict will happen next?
Once everyone submitted on the Google form, I played the next set of pages: “The Good”- “My Mother Tries to Grab Me”
At the end of the section, Xiomara leaves home. I stopped the audiobook here and asked the kids to fill in another Google form with two questions:
What is your name?
Who do you think Xiomara will reach out to when she leaves her apt? Why?
It wasn’t my best lesson but it got me through the day and the predictions helped to create some curiosity in the kids.
Day 6
"Returning" to "What I Say to Ms. Galiano"
To connect to the end of last class’s lesson, I started off by having the kids complete a journal about leaving home. Here was the prompt:
Journal: If you decided to leave your house after a big fight, who would you call? Where would you go? Why would you go to this person/place? (100 words)
I did not have the kids share out their journals, as it seemed too personal of a topic, but I wanted to have them do it so that they could connect to Xiomara in the next scene, when Xiomara leaves home and reaches out to a few people to help her. The section we listened to today was "Returning" to "What I Say to Ms. Galiano"
I had the kids complete a “3-2-1” activity after the reading, which is when, after reading, kids list three things they found out, two things they thought were interesting and one question they still had. I don’t recommend this activity because it was not a concrete enough and the kids didn’t do well with it.
Day 7-Start Building Up to the Ending
At this point, we were finally homing in on the end of the book, but there was still a lot to talk about and it took a few more lessons to get across the finish line. Today was a “setup” day, where I tried to build background knowledge before getting into the last section of reading.
We started with the obligatory icebreaker for the day, which was for the kids to rate their weekend from 1-10 and share out why .
Then I moved on to the pre-reading lesson, which was focused on how to have a conversation with a parent that you don’t get along with. I focused on this because I wanted to give the kids some real world skills, and I wanted to give them a framework for analysis for the upcoming section of reading.
I walked the kids through a lecture on how to talk to parents.
I started the lecture by just asking them what they thought were some ways in which a person could go about having a conversation with a difficult parent and had them post on the Nearpod discussion board.
After that, I prompted the kids to listen as I briefly lectured and went through the rest of the slides on the Nearpod. I asked them to pay attention to tips that might be helpful for Xiomara.
Once I finished lecturing, we listened to the chapters “Going Home”- “Stronger” and I asked the kids to look for the techniques that Xiomara used to talk to her parents.
For the “after” reading activity, I asked kids to fill in this handout about how Xiomara talked to her parents and then write a paragraph summarizing their observations.
Day 8
At this point, I got super ambitious. I wanted my self-contained kids to do some of the higher level stuff that my AP kids were doing. I knew it would be hard for them because they haven’t had a lot of exposure to literary analysis, but I wanted to give them that chance and at least introduce them to the process.
This was my first attempt, with this book, in breaking down the analysis, and it was OK, but next year I will try to break this down into even smaller steps.
I started by teaching the literary devices that I wanted to focus on: repetition, anaphora, simile, imagery, and metaphor. I wanted to give the kids some softballs that would be easy for them to find in the text. I used this very hastily put together PowerPoint. In the past, every time I taught devices, I would make a nice PowerPoint and then lose track of it, so basically now I just slap a new one together every time. It takes two seconds and serves its purpose and I don’t have to spend too much time on it.)
After my lecture, we listened to the ending of the story and I ran out of time for the day, but I didn’t feel too bad about it because I knew this would be the first of a few readings of the ending.
Day 9
Analysis of Ending
We started today by playing a Kahoot in order to review the devices that I wanted to focus on (metaphor, simile, anaphora, repetition, and personification). This is the link to the Poet X Last Page Kahoot.
Next, I asked the kids to identify these devices on the last page of The Poet X, but I had them do it together on a Jamboard so that they could work together. I took a screenshot of the text and uploaded it to the Jamboard, and then I showed kids how to annotate it using the annotation tools. Jamboard is defunct now, but since we are back at school you could do this lesson on a Smartboard or overhead projector.
After working on the jamboard together, I asked kids to complete this Poet X Last Page Analysis by themselves, where they basically chose a line, and a device and talked about the effect it had in the story.
Day 10
Start Writing
Everything went crazy at this point because I got the genius idea to give the kids a menu of writing options, but because I had not taught this book before, I didn’t have any templates or outlines to use for the prompts, and I had to try and walk the kids through that stuff from scratch. It didn’t really work. The note that I left to myself on my unit plan was “DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN. START WITH ONE PROMPT, BUILD UP THE MATERIALS, AND THEN ADD MORE PROMPTS.” So, you can take this advice or do what I do and ignore it. I liked giving the kids options and my coteacher and I just ended up walking everyone individually through the process, but it wasn’t great. We only managed to swing it because we have very small class of 10 kids. I tried to do this same thing with my class of 28 and it didn’t work .
But the last few days of the unit, in general, were mini lectures about the writing process, followed by time to write and conference. I also threw in some examples of slam poetry just to make the start of the lesson a bit more interesting before I jumped into my lectures. Here are writing prompts for The Poet X.
Day 11
The last thing I do before wrapping up a unit is give kids an easy comprehension test to see if they caught the major events and characters in the book. If they don't do well, I know to skip the book for next or teach it in a different way. A 49-question test is available for sale in my TpT store.
I hope some of this free Poet X unit was helpful to you!
Next Time
I think one of my big misses in this unit was not exposing my kids to more slam poetry throughout, especially by Acevedo and amazing teenagers the same age as my students. So, I know that next year, if I get to teach this book again, I will most likely change a lot but I will definitely work to incorporate more slam poetry.
Here’s one to check out: “Afro-Latina” by Elizabeth Acevedo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPx8cSGW4k8
Related Items:
Other Great YA Books Connect to The Poet X
I have come across a few great books that connect to The Poet X. My kids enjoyed reading this novel-in-verse during virtual learning and I am always looking for books with similar characters to feed to the students who enjoyed The Poet X.
The list below is just a start and I will add more as I come across them.
Furia
by Yamile Saied Méndez
I had trouble with the opening, but once I got my bearings, I spent the next few nights with a popcorn bowl and this book. Determined to get a shot at being a professional soccer player, Argentinian teenager Camila Hassan has to defy her parents to attend practices and play on a championship team. Very similar to Xiomara, she knows what she wants, but due to her parents' and her society's ideas about what women should and should not be able to do, she has to play in secret despite her immense talent. To make matters worse, her brother and her crush are both getting a shot at the big time, while she is expected to play the role of a good girl. As she gets closer and closer to her dreams, you, too, will be shoveling popcorn down your face while waiting to see what happens.
I plan on pitching this book to some of my female students who love to watch and play soccer.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
by Erika L. Sanchez
Speaking of daughters who do not listen, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter would be another great connection to The Poet X. Julia Reyes has just lost her sister, and this haunts her because her sister, or so she thinks, WAS the perfect Mexican daughter. Julia is far from it. She is smart and wants to go to college and wants nothing to do with getting older and living with her parents (like a perfect Mexican daughter). As Julia tries to work through her grief, wandering many miles around Chicago, she starts to learn that maybe her sister was not as perfect as she thought....
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
In Clap When You Land, a plane crash reveals the hidden life of a father who had a family in the Bronx and a family in the Dominican Republic. In each family, there is a stubborn teenage daughter who does not know about her sister. As the story progresses, the secret unravels until both of his daughters decide to take action. Although I enjoyed The Poet X and With the Fire on High, this is my favorite Acevedo book so far.
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