Lanterns in the Dark: Poems, Narrative, And The Poet X
Help me give my students, and Mx. Kartane's students, a class set of "The Poet X" by Elizabeth Acevedo!
$1,147 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
The students whom I have the immense privilege to teach are lightyears beyond what can be explained in words! Students at PHS represent a loving, close-knit community, and proudly represent many cultures. It is on behalf of their excellence and strength that I have developed this project!
The kids who pass through our school, some passing through my 9th grade English class, face unique intersections of race, class, and gender, and thus are grounded in powerful, urgent truths.
This gives my students an uncompromising need to see themselves and others around them dignified every day. When they are not under a punitive thumb, students burst with beauty and talent I have not encountered anywhere else. Winning national creative awards, organizing annual cultural showcases, and engaging in dozens of on-campus clubs are some of the many accolades. My students are the most human of us all, and they are the greatest teachers of us all. The love I have for them is the least I can do; it's the love for themselves, their communities, and their potential that I fight for every day.
My Project
In the second unit of 2019, students in the classrooms of four teachers at PHS will journey through the heart of Xiomara, a Dominican teenager in Harlem, as she reckons with faith, friendship, family, love, and the thundering power of her words. The author, Elizabeth Acevedo, already a beautiful and accomplished poet, has won countless awards for her breakout work.
This story, like so many our kids keep locked away in their own hearts, is told fearlessly and is bent on giving young people a key.
Through my own life and practice, I cannot stress how important poetry is; words are a balm our wounds cannot do without. While this text masterfully weaves narrative and poetic forms, it's greatest merit lies in the message Xio shouts from it's pages: your stories are your power, and your words are freedom.
“I only know that learning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. And isn't that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark.” -Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X
Unit Essential Questions:
• How do we use evidence to determine and analyze theme? (RL.1,2)
• How does an author advance the plot or develop the theme of a story using characterization? (RL.3)
• How does figurative and connotative meaning of words and phrases impact the theme of the text? (RL.4)
• How does the author use the structure of the text to impact tone? (RL.5)
Performance Tasks
(W.2) OPTION A: Observe the following question:
“How does one find their voice?”
(W.2) OPTION B: Choose any relevant topic or subject and establish a focus within that topic; now develop a “how” question:
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