Elizabeth Acevedo's "The Poet X" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

Distinctive features of The Poet X

• Compelling use of the verse novel form 
• Powerful first-person voice 
• Insightful examination of family relationships 
• Close focus on growing up and rebellion against family and religious restrictions and ways to come together, not apart 
• Racist and sexist attitudes are revealed and countered
• Insight into adolescent feelings and attitudes about body image, relationships, identity and sexuality
• A strong example of agency for youth as Xiomara struggles to be heard at home and at school and succeeds through her courage and her poetry
• Encourages students to examine figurative and literal language and will inspire them to write their own slam poetry. 

Ways to use The Poet X in the classroom

Slam Poetry competition

Miles Merrill is a performance writer and the founder of Australian Poetry Slam. Narcisa Nozica is an English teacher and winner of the NSW Premier’s English Teachers’ Association Scholarship. Together there is not much they don't know about helping young people find their poetic voice and thankfully they wrote a book about their experiences called Slam Your Poetry (2020, NewSouth). It’s an engaging, accessible and practical guide to writing poetry for everyone, and especially for students. It has three main sections. Write to speak covers ideas for writing and how to perform. Part 2 details how to set up a Slam and Part 3, Teach a revolution, is both a rationale and a handbook about how to engage students and awaken the poet and artist within them. The appendixes have detailed online resources including spoken word and video collections, sample guidelines and templates for running your own Slam. You could use The Poet X in conjunction with this book to plan a Student Poetry Slam and Xiomara from the novel, could be your secret guest speaker!

Wide reading for pleasure in verse novels and class discussion 

British writer Sarah Crossan and Australian writer Steven Herrick are two great proponents of the verse novel form. Sarah Crossan has written many fine verse novels including the Carnegie award winning One in 2016, about co-joined twins. Moonrise is another engrossing verse novel about the denial of justice, about life on the poverty line and about siblings and the love that binds them together. Toffee is concerned with homelessness and relations between the old and the young while We Fall Apart is about modern star-crossed lovers.  In an interview on You Tube Crossan explains that verse novels appeal to her because:

… you don’t have to worry about all the in-between stuff in a story. You create these snapshots of people’s lives like a series of photographs … (whereas a conventional novel is more like a film) … In a verse novel, readers are prepared to work harder to do a bit more work, but having said that it’s an easier read because there is so much white space on the page.

Crossan has really summed up why verse novels are such a wonderful form to explore in the classroom, especially with disengaged or reluctant readers. Steven Herrick has had great success with his verse novels including Love, Ghosts and Nose Hair, The Simple Gift, By the River and Cold Skin among his many titles. Put all the verse novels from Crossan and Steven Herrick in a book box and get students to read for pleasure and just nominate which one was the best for them and why that was so. Sit back and watch the reading and discussion begin.

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English 7-10 syllabus

Text requirements: The Poet X is a verse novel by an author from the USA.   It includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.
For more recommended texts suitable for Stage 5, explore our Year 9 texts and study guides and Year 10 texts and study guides.

Concepts could include Narrative, Connotation, Symbol and Imagery.

Relevant NSW English 7-10 Syllabus content

Reading, viewing and listening to texts

Reading, viewing and listening for meaning

• Analyse the main ideas and thematic concerns represented in texts
• Investigate how layers of meaning are constructed in texts and how this shapes a reader’s understanding and engagement
• Draw on prior knowledge of texts to question, challenge and deepen understanding of both new and familiar texts
• Clarify and justify personal responses to texts, explaining how aspects of the text, such as character, genre, tone, salience or voice, position a reader and influence these personal responses
• Analyse how the use of language forms and features in texts have the capacity to create multiple meanings
• Analyse how language use evolves over time and is influenced by social and technological changes and developments

Reflecting 

• Reflect on how reading, viewing and listening to texts has informed and inspired learning
• Reflect on how an appreciation of texts can be enhanced through re-reading, and close or critical study
• Understand and reflect on the value of reading for personal growth and cultural richness
• Use reading strategies, and evaluate their effectiveness, when reflecting on the successes and challenges of extended reading
• Reflect on how reading promotes a broad and balanced understanding of the world and enables students to explore wider universal issues
• Reflect on own experiences of reading by interacting with peers in meaningful ways about the value of reading

Understanding and responding to texts A

Connotation, imagery and symbol 

• Analyse how figurative language and devices can be used to represent complex ideas, thoughts and feelings to contribute to larger patterns of meaning in texts, and experiment with this in own texts

Narrative 

• Analyse how narrative conventions vary across genres, modes, media and contexts and how they can be used to represent ideas and values and shape responses, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Explore how narratives can represent and shape personal and shared identities, values and experiences

Expressing ideas and composing texts A

Writing 

• Select and adapt appropriate codes, conventions and structures to shape meaning when composing written texts that are analytical, informative, persuasive, discursive and/or imaginative
• Develop a personal and informed voice that generates ideas and positions an audience through selection of appropriate word-level language and text-level features
• Experiment with language to create tone, atmosphere and mood
• Use rhetorical language strategically and subtly to shape complex ideas and convince others of a point of view, as appropriate to audience and purpose
• Use tense accurately and purposefully
• Apply narrative voice to depict complex ideas and enhance engagement
• Create engaging and authentic temporal and spatial settings for a range of purposes and audiences

Representing 

• Experiment with a variety of codes and conventions to create aesthetic qualities that have the power to communicate ideas and influence viewpoints in own texts
• Compose visual and multimodal texts to express complex ideas, using a range of digital technologies where appropriate

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023)

Connecting texts