Antologías de poesía (A2)
Copyright Elizabeth Acevedo, 2019.
From the very beginning, the goal of this year’s Español Avanzado 2 curriculum has been to expose students to different literary genres. My hope was twofold. Firstly, I hoped that students found inspiration in a wide array of texts. Secondly, I wished this in turn would ignite their inner voices, and lead them to express themselves creatively through reading, writing, listening, speaking, and art making. This last trimester was the culmination of all they’ve learned, and I very much wanted them to walk away with a tangible product. Therefore, both students created their very own book of poetry!
Our last trimester also merged the two genres with which we worked during the first and second trimesters: poetry and narrative. In Elizabeth Acevedo’s novel in verse PoetX we found our grounding and inspiration. Starting with detailed observation of its energetic and captivating book covers, moving along through its pages filled with free verse poetry, we had the opportunity to discover ourselves and create alongside Xiomara, the book’s headstrong and unconventional heroine.
Students drew from PoetX in more ways than one. They examined the book cover, considered its images, use of color, and different sections, prior to designing their very own cover spread. As we immersed ourselves in the story and followed Xiomara’s journey of self-discovery, we brought out themes, poetic structures, and prompts directly from the plot. Students used these as starting points to write their own original poems. In total, they had 26 prompts to choose from, inspired from the text.
Once the book jackets had been designed and the poems thoroughly revised, they were all edited and made into hardcover books using the tool BookWright, from the self-publishing company Blurb.
We hope you enjoy looking at the book covers and reading all the poems!
If you are interested in purchasing one of these two books, please contact Leisa for more information.
Las portadas y sobrecubiertas
Juanzi
Click to enlarge.
Shanti
Click to enlarge.
Los poemas
Juanzi
Shanti
Las ilustraciones de Shanti
Once senior Juanzi left to do her internship, it was just Shanti and I. On our first solo class, and knowing how much she enjoys making art, I asked her whether she wanted to illustrate some of her poems, as she had done for Garcilaso’s and Góngora’s poems for our poetry unit during trimester one. Not only did she say yes, but when asked which ones she wanted to illustrate, she said: “Todos. Quiero ilustrarlos todos.“
So, here they are, all her illustrations, organized by the order in which the poems were written and as they appear in her anthology.
Las antologías finales
Juanzi
Shanti
The printed book should be arriving at Meridian next week!