Grade 9 Unit 2
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood–but secretly, she pours her dreams and frustrations onto the pages of her notebook like prayers. When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, Xiomara doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her religious mami finding out. But even so, in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
Big Ideas:
We all belong to various cultures and they shape who we are.
Each culture has a language that is unique to its members.
All languages are complex and evolving.
The cultures we belong to impact our values and beliefs and in turn how we relate to others.
All relationships, negative or positive, have the ability to impact who we are, how we interact with others, and how we relate to the world around us.
Poetry is a powerful medium for storytelling.
Writers are able to convey powerful messages through their use of recurring themes and ideas.
Culminating Task:
- Analytical Assessment: Students will be able to write an essay on The Poet X in order to demonstrate their ability to develop a quality thesis statement, organize their ideas logically, provide context for their arguments, provide quality textual evidence, and analyze their evidence to prove their thesis. Essays should be a minimum of five paragraphs in length and contain a minimum of 800 words).
- Optional Creative Assessments:
- Poetry Slam: Working as individuals or small groups of no more than four, students will write and memorize 90 second poems that contain figurative language, sound devices, and a clear message about a topic of their choice. Students will then compete against one another in an in-class competition with judges who will privately score their poems. Emphasis will be placed on encouraging and supporting all performers and not the scores. At the end, a winner will be declared.
- Poetry Anthology: Working as individuals or small groups of no more than four, students will write their own poetry anthologies around a central theme of their choice. This theme should appear throughout students’ poems, demonstrating their understanding of how to use motifs. Each poet should contribute four original poems, showing their ability to use figurative language and sound devices. Teachers may choose other elements to incorporate, such as a cover, a dedication page, a table of contents, and authors bios.
