Kwame Alexander said, in an interview with Aram Goudsouzian, for Chapter 16, an online community of readers in Tennessee: “[The poems in The Crossover] each had to shine individually, but they also had to work together for the greater good—the story.” Write an essay engaging with this quote. You should use 1-3 poems to explore your ideas. The quote in other words — How does the poem (or the poems) shine individually as a work of poetry, but also contribute to developing a larger novel narrative? How does it stand alone and help build this “real” world? GUIDELINES 1. Word count minimum = 850 (max – roughly 1200) 2. Be sure your document is properly formatted (header/title/spacing, etc + .doc/.rtf): See Formatting Essays document 3. Be sure to mention Alexander’s quote above in your introduction. Assume your reader knows who Alexander IS, but has no idea about the quote. ALSO your reader has never read the book. 4. Be sure to quote properly from the novel (this means page numbers and titles of poems + correct quotation punctuation and signal phrasing). 5. There is no need for an Alexander “bio” in the introduction. 6. This probably won’t be a plug-n-chug five-paragraph essay, unless you are extremely well-detailed and efficient in your writing. Think about how much you need to explore/explain. 7. Remember topic sentences: don’t begin paragraphs with quotations. Begin with YOUR IDEA or statement, and then use quotations to illustrate and support your ideas. If you lead with a quote, your reader doesn’t know why you’re throwing it out there.

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