This week I will be talking about The Crossover by Kwame Alexander and Mentor Texts by Dorfman and Cappelli. I am also writing a new narrative and writing some poems!

 

The Crossover is a middle grade or early high school text. The book follows along twin brothers Josh and Jordan Bell, amazing basketball players. Josh has another talent, spitting beats. Josh tells his family's story in verse which makes this book interesting and entertaining for readers! The Crossover is about Josh and Jordan growing up on and off the court. Kwame Alexander also made a graphic novel of The Crossover!

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Kwame Alexander is an author, educator, poet, publisher, and speaker. He is a New York Times bestselling author of 35 books! Kwame was born in Manhattan, NY. He recently moved from Virginia to London a few years ago. He enjoys watching reruns of The Office and hanging out with his two daughters. He came from a family of artists. His siblings careers involve music and entertainment, modeling, photography, and writing. Kwame founded the publishing company, Versify and reads manuscripts for them often. Kwame has won the Newbery Medal award, Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Text, Coretta Scott King Honor, and New York Times bestselling author. 

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Fun fact: It took Kwame 5 years to write The Crossover

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Quote: "Always shoot for the sun and you will shine."

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Favorite sports: tennis and basketball

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Affordances of Reading a Verse Novel

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I personally have never read a verse novel but I really enjoyed it! The pages aren't long so it keeps your attention. The capitol letters, definitions, titles, italics, and spaced out words really grab readers attention. I think this would be a great novel for upper elementary, middle school, or even high school because you can learn so much from it. Many older students do not even read novels that are assigned to them but I think they would read this! Kwame's style of writing is unique and it's relatable to readers. I think high schoolers would love this book because of the rhyming and the "rap" style it has. For elementary, this verse novel introduces many writing styles that could strengthen the students writing.

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Additional Resources

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This book draws in basketball lovers. I liked how Kwame included famous basketball players like Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, etc. This will draw in readers that look up to these incredible basketball players. I love for students to research to gain a better knowledge of the text they are reading. I would invite students to research a talented basketball player of their choice. By doing this, it allows the student to gain more confidence and knowledge of The Crossover. I'll be honest, I don't know much about basketball but I didn't have to in order to enjoy this book. I have also added a wonderful teacher's guide to The Crossover that will help students really dive in.

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My Poetry Invitation

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On the very first page of The Crossover, I was immediately drawn in by Kwame Alexander (page 3). The capitol letters, words spaced out, italics, and adjectives. I wanted to recreate this form of poetry with my narrative that I'm writing. As I said last week, I'm writing a personal narrative on when I got into Appalachian State. I sat down and started writing my poem and I couldn't out my pen down. I would invite students to pick one of their narratives that they really loved. I would then invite them to write down one moment from the narrative that could draw in a reader. I would then instruct students to write down what they were wearing at that moment, adjectives that describe their feelings, include a challenging word, and/or words they want to emphasize. 

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In my previous poem I included a word that not many people use, propitious. I wanted to take Kwame Alexander's style of explaining a word like on page 104. I really loved this form of poetry because it allows the reader to explore this challenging word and gives examples. I would invite students to pick a challenging word for their poem. It could be a noun, adjective, verb, etc. I would then invite students to explore this word and how it might fit into their narrative. Then students could think of examples that correlate to their narrative or not! This is a great way for students to learn challenging words and to add extra "oomph" in their writings. 

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