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Poet X Essay Topics & Writing Assignments

Essay Topic 1

Trace the characterization arc of Xiomara’s character throughout the novel. Discuss whether she is a round or flat character and whether she is a static or dynamic character.

Essay Topic 2

What is the Acevedo’s message concerning the unique struggle undergone by young women caught between two cultures?

Essay Topic 3

Determine Acevedo's message regarding the idea that art must be shared with an audience in order to fulfill its true potential.

Essay Topic 4

Look carefully at the passages of the novel that describe the close, yet somewhat tentative, relationship between Xiomara and Xavier. What is Acevedo's purpose for discussing at length the nature of the connection between these two teenage siblings?

Essay Topic 5

Explicate the theme of courage within The Poet X. What is Acevedo's message regarding courage and how do you know?

Essay Topic 6

Discuss how and why Acevedo instills three different humanist messages...

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Themes in The Poet X

In this activity, activity overview, template and class instructions, more storyboard that activities.

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Novels and poetry often have a variety of themes throughout that students can identify and analyze. Any literary elements can be conveyed through characters, setting, dialogue, plot, or a combination. In this activity, students will identify a theme of The Poet X and illustrate examples from the text. Students can explore by identifying these elements themselves or in an “ envelope activity ”, where they are given one or more to track throughout their reading. Then, they'll create a spider map illustrating what they found! Teachers may ask students to illustrate multiple examples of a single theme, symbol, or motif, or illustrate one example for each.

Examples of Themes in The Poet X

• Coming of age
• Dysfunctional family life and abuse
• Poetry and the power of words
• Sexist gender roles
• Generation gap
• Sexual harassment
• Body shaming
• Children of immigrant parents
• Female empowerment
• Courage and finding one's voice
• Forgiveness and reconciliation

(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)

Objective: Create a storyboard that identifies at lest one theme of The Poet X . Illustrate each and write a short description below each cell.

Student Instructions:

• Identify the themes from the story that you wish to include and type them in the title box at the top.
• Create an image for examples that represent each symbol using appropriate scenes, characters and items.
• Write a description of each of the examples in the black text box.

Lesson Plan Reference

Grade Level 9-12

Difficulty Level 3 (Developing to Mastery)

Type of Assignment Individual

Type of Activity: Themes, Symbols & Motifs

(You can also create your own on Quick Rubric .)

How To Teach Theme Using Storyboards

Discuss a prevalent theme.

Lead students in a discussion of a prevalent theme in The Poet X. Students need to find a lesson that the story teaches that they see played out throughout the book.

Help Students Find Examples

Students will need varying degrees of help in finding examples of the theme, and you can assist them by pointing out characters, setting, plot, and dialogue elements that will aid their awareness of theme.

Create a Storyboard

Frequently Asked Questions about Themes in the Poet X

Why is understanding theme important.

The theme of a story is what you learn about life after reading a story. Understanding theme is important, therefore, because it makes the connection between the story and the real life lessons for students.

What is the relationship between theme and motif?

A theme is the life lesson learned from reading a story, and a motif is a symbol that is used throughout a story that often illuminates the theme. Authors use motifs to make the point they are trying to make.

Poet X, The

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Xiomara ’s family is extremely religious, and she grew up spending much of her free time at her local Catholic church. As Xiomara grows and begins to come of age, however, religion starts to look far less meaningful and fun. Instead, Xiomara recognizes that the ideas that Father Sean preaches about are meant to keep her, as a young woman, in line—and in many cases, discourage her from ever voicing the doubts that she has about God and Christianity in general. Importantly, The Poet X doesn’t try to make the case that religion is unequivocally bad or oppressive, even though it often seems that way to Xiomara. Instead, the novel proposes that part of a young person’s coming-of-age journey should necessarily include asking questions about the belief systems that they were raised with, and ultimately figuring out how to combine those teachings with their own personal beliefs.

Throughout her life, Xiomara has been told that she’s a very special gift from God. Mami never wanted to marry and instead wanted to become a nun, but she had to marry Papi in order to move to the United States. It took years for them to conceive, during which time Mami saw herself as a failure. Being finally blessed with twins is, in Mami’s eyes, proof of her own success and of God’s goodness—though for Xiomara, it feels like she has to constantly strive to earn her right to exist and live up to being a blessing. Part of the reason that Xiomara feels she has to work so hard is because she is acutely aware of how, according to Catholic teachings, her worth comes from her continued devotion and from keeping her sexuality under tight control. Xiomara doesn’t feel that either of these practices are easy to maintain, given that she experiences sexual thoughts and desires that people tell her go against what it means to be a good Catholic. Because of this conflict, Xiomara has very real doubts about God and the role that she’d like religion to play in her life. For much of the novel, Xiomara sees religion as something designed to turn her into someone she doesn’t want to be, all while oppressing the parts of her that she’s interested in exploring. This includes her love of poetry (the school club for which meets on Tuesday afternoons at the same time as confirmation class) and her sexuality.

What’s more, Xiomara is often not given a choice in whether or not to participate in religious activities—and her participation means that she is further expected to accept what others tell her without asking questions. Then, when Xiomara does ask questions about religion or otherwise rebels, Mami forces Xiomara to, for example, kneel on rice and pray. Devotion tends to be a punishment for Xiomara, not something that she is happy to be a part of or that helps her make sense of her questions.

This finally begins to change when, after Xiomara asks a series of questions about Genesis, original sin, and Eve, and then gets caught kissing Aman , Mami forces Xiomara to attend confession with Father Sean. Rather than going along with Mami’s punishments or answering Xiomara’s questions, Father Sean suggests to Mami that Xiomara put off confirmation. While not entirely a win for Xiomara, who would like to leave religion behind completely at this point, this turn of events does suggest that Father Sean is far more open to his congregation questioning their relationships with God than Xiomara gave him credit for. In other words, at least in Father Sean’s eyes, religions devotion shouldn’t be as unthinking or as closely tied to punishment as Mami might want it to be for Xiomara. By giving Xiomara the space to ask questions and especially by not requiring her to be confirmed as Mami wants her to be, Father Sean encourages Xiomara to come to religion on her own terms. Importantly, as Father Sean engages with Xiomara in this way and stands up for her autonomy, he also situates himself as a trustworthy and nonjudgmental person to help her answer some of her questions. Later, he even helps her talk to Mami about how to handle the different ways in which she and Xiomara see religion.

Father Sean teaches Xiomara the importance of thinking critically about religion and, most importantly, models for Xiomara and Mami how a person’s questions about faith don’t mean that their relationships with other faithful people have to suffer as a consequence. In fact, his counseling sessions with Xiomara and Mami help Mami to come to terms with the daughter she has, not the idealized daughter she wants. In short, Father Sean makes the case to everyone that confirmation and other formal religious rites of passage aren’t actually good markers of a mature adult or a devoted person. Rather, maturity comes when a person is able to think critically about God and religious teachings, and then go on to choose to be faithful in a way that feels authentic and meaningful for them.

Religion and Coming of Age ThemeTracker

Religion and Coming of Age Quotes in The Poet X

The other girls call me conceited. Ho. Thot. Fast. When your body takes up more room than your voice you are always the target of well-aimed rumors, which is why I let my knuckles talk for me. Which is why I learned to shrug when my name was replaced by insults.

I look at her scarred knuckles. I know exactly how she was taught faith.

Their gazes and words are heavy with all the things they want you to be.

It is ungrateful to feel like a burden. It is ungrateful to resent my own birth. I know that Twin and I are miracles.

Aren’t we reminded every single day?

And I get all this attention from guys but it’s like a sancocho of emotions.

This stew of mixed-up ingredients: partly flattered they think I’m attractive, partly scared they’re only interested in my ass and boobs, and a good measure of Mami-will-kill-me fear sprinkled on top.

What if I like a boy too much and none of those things happen... they’re the only scales I have.

How does a girl like me figure out the weight of what it means to love a boy?

what’s the point of God giving me life if I can’t live it as my own?

Why does listening to his commandments mean I need to shut down my own voice?

“And about this apple, how come God didn’t explain why they couldn’t eat it? He gave Eve curiosity but didn’t expect her to use it? Unless the apple is a metaphor? Is the whole Bible a poem? What’s not a metaphor? Did any of it actually happen?

And I knew then what I’d known since my period came: my body was trouble. I had to pray the trouble out of the body God gave me. My body was a problem. And I didn’t want any of these boys to be the ones to solve it. I wanted to forget I had this body at all.

But even business deals are promises. And we still married in a church. And so I never walked away from him

although I tried my best to get back to my first love. And confirmation is the last step I can give you.

I lay it across my wrist and cinch the clasps closed. Her daughter on one side, myself on the other.

I have no more poems. My mind blanks. A roar tears from my mouth. “Burn it! Burn it. This is where the poems are,” I say, thumping a fist against my chest.

“Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too? You would burn me, wouldn’t you, if you could?”

She puts a soft hand on my arm and I look into the face of a woman not much older than me, a woman with a Spanish last name, who loves books and poetry, who I notice for the first time is pretty, who has a soft voice and called my house because she was worried and the words are out before I know it:

And so, I love this quote because even though it’s not about poetry, it IS about poetry. It’s about any of the words that bring us together and how we can form a home in them.

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The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo

The Poet X essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Poet X by Acevado.

The Poet X Material

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The Poet X Essays

Elizabeth acevedo’s ode to adolescent power: culture, conflict, and reassurance in the poet x isabel acedo college.

Adolescence alone, as a transitional period from child to adult, marks a challenging time in an individual’s life. Often times, factors outside the mind and body seem to exist solely to aggravate this tremulous, question-filled period. Poet X ’s...

Discovering Self Worth through Spoken Word in "The Poet X" Olivia F. Vega 11th Grade

In Elizabeth Acevedo’s young adult novel, The Poet X, fifteen-year old Dominican-American Xiomara Batista describes her aspirations and personal life experiences in the form of poetic verse. Through her narration the reader learns that Xiomara’s...