The Crossover
Hello and welcome back to Ms. Parsels’s Poppin’ Literacy Corner. This week I was lucky enough to explore the novel The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. This unique book is written in verse and is action-packed, leaving this reader sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens next. This week I decided to give my sixth-grade students a “sneak peek” into this novel. Many of them played on the middle school basketball team this winter and I thought that it might be a great way to help engage them in reading, as many of my students do not like to read for pleasure. Let me tell you, they absolutely loved it. This book served as a great way to merge together many different skills that we have discussed over the past few weeks. For example, students were able to identify the use of figurative language and make inferences based on a specific section of the book while using citing evidence. I am so excited to continue exploring this novel with them for the next few weeks before we dig into our final novel of the school year.
My Reading Experience
While personally reading this novel, I was in awe of the structure of each poem. Each poem was so different, but I found myself just wanting to keep reading more. On page 3, the word “slipping” is written at a slant going downward. While reading I could not help but put my finger on the word and slide my finger down the word. This was the case for all of these words. I’m not sure why, but I did this, but it just felt right for some reason. While reading this book I also found myself imagining the basketball scenes in real-time. Growing up I was highly active in sports and spent four years playing basketball. This helped me make a connection to the book as well as provided me with prior background knowledge. Another experience that I had while reading this book is a mixture of emotions. The competitive side of me was just thinking “come on kid, you got this. Focus!, etc.”. The emotional side of me started to ball Filthy McNasty’s family experiences loss and grief in their family, as I can make a connection to the feeling of losing a family member and grieving their loss. Lastly, the happy-go-lucky side of me was so proud of Filthy McNasty and how he had grown throughout this excellent book. To say the least, I felt very conflicted with all of these emotions throughout the book. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and think that it is going to serve as a great novel for my students to study for the next few weeks. I think that there are many great themes that come from this collection of poems that Alexander has written. My students are going to definitely be on the edge of their seats for the remainder of this book!
Affordances for the Classroom
There are many affordances to utilizing this book in an upper elementary classroom. In my personal sixth-grade classroom a few affordances that this book offers to this group of students is accessibility, it is high-interest, it is action-packed, and is not “ginormous”. Many of my students are below grade-level, making it rather difficult at times to find a novel that challenges all of my learners in some capacity. This book does just that. The text is easy to follow and not overwhelmingly long to read, but also invites students to think critically and analytically about the figurative language that is being utilized. I found that my students that are performing below grade-level were able to recall what was happening in the story as well as make inferences. My students that are performing at grade-level and above were able to look at this text with a more analytical lens. These students were able to find examples of figurative language in the text and were able to use specific detail to support their claims when asked questions throughout the text. Another affordance of this book is that it is a Newberry Medal Winner and Coretta Scott King Honor book. These prestigious awards, in short, validate the authenticity and high-quality of writing for children's literature. Lastly, this book is very authentic and personable. Some students may be able to make connections to the main character because they have lost a parent or some student may connect with the passion for basketball. The opportunities for this book are limitless!
My Poem Explorations
This week, I was so inspired by Kwame's book that I tried out one of his poem formats in my writer's notebook. Check out my poem about the work frightened to the right and an example from The Crossover on the left!
