Booked

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Blackout Verbomania”

In this activity, students will create a blackout poem using a poem from the novel that illustrates a lesson, message, or theme.

Throughout the novel, Nick demonstrates a complex relationship with words. Twice, he creates blackout poems to build his ideas. Create your own blackout poem illustrating a major idea in the novel.

• Decide on a lesson, message, or theme from the novel you want to emphasize in your poem.
• Select a poem from the novel to use as your canvas. Choose one of the longer poems such as “Huckleberry Finn-ished,” “Cool?,” “Conversation with The Mac,” “Rock Horse Ranch,” or “Conversation with Dr. Fraud.”
• Create a physical or electronic copy of the poem to use as your “canvas.”
• Cross out all words EXCEPT the ones that are a part of your poem.
• Use colors, images, and shapes in the margins or border to build additional meaning.

Display your poem on our class bulletin board. In your journal or notes, compose a brief reflection paragraph describing the experience of creating the blackout poem. How do Nick’s blackout poems in the novel contribute indirectly to his character development?

Teaching Suggestion: The novel includes blackout poems after the poems “Huckleberry Finn-ished” and “After School, You Stop in to See The Mac.” Studying these together will provide students with concrete examples. It might benefit the class to brainstorm and discuss key ideas, themes, and messages in the novel, so students have a chance to choose from that list as they focus individually.

• Writer Austin Kleon’s blackout poems demonstrate variety in subject and tone. The class might read and discuss one together; appropriate options might include either untitled work under the heading “I Made Some Poems,” “Time Is Not a Butler,” or “The Map Is Not the Territory.”

Differentiation Suggestion: Students who would benefit from an opportunity to use or practice kinesthetic or interpersonal skills might perform their poems. Students with musical interests might incorporate music into their presentation.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Though brief, the footnotes add to Nick’s character, as he explains words in his own way and elaborates on his reactions to them.

• What do the footnotes throughout the book reveal about Nick? (topic sentence)
• Focus on 3 footnoted words or quotations and other details. Analyze and discuss each in support of your topic sentence.
• The footnotes are referenced throughout the book and appear in the last pages. In your concluding sentence or sentences, articulate how this format affects you as a reader.

2. Nick’s and Coby’s teams compete in a big soccer game.

• During this section (“The Big Match” through “Booked”) what is the primary mood of the story? (topic sentence)
• How does the author build this mood over the course of the game? What writing techniques, literary devices, or style characteristics contribute most effectively to the mood? Incorporate quotations and additional text details in your analysis.
• In your conclusion, evaluate the effectiveness of the mood in comparison to other sections of the novel.

3. Nick’s parents begin the process of divorce, and Coby’s parents are already separated.

• How do Nick and Coby help each other face Reimagining Family? (topic sentence)
• Analyze and discuss key plot points and character actions in support of your topic sentence.  As you compose your essay, include quotations and text details as evidence and rationale.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, summarize the lesson most strongly conveyed by the novel on the theme of Reimagining Family.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. In a 3- or 5-paragraph essay, analyze the book’s format: a novel in verse. Here are some guiding questions you may wish to consider: How does this format contribute to the overall themes and mood of the book? With which plot points does it seem most effective? Where does the verse format connect to specific characters in particular? How do the length of the lines affect the mood in various poems?  As you write your essay, incorporate at least 3 quotations and additional details as examples, citing each quotation in the style requested by your instructor.

2. Consider the role competition plays in the novel. For example, soccer plays an important role in Nick’s life; through games and practices, readers learn about his character indirectly. What other competitions exist in the novel, and what does Nick gain from them? How does the experience of competition build Nick’s character? In a 3- or 5-paragraph essay, analyze the overall role of competition in the novel and evaluate the ways in which it both builds and reveals Nick’s character. Connect the theme of Verbomania as a Sport in your discussion. 

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following best describes Nick’s feelings about his parents’ separation and divorce?

A) Disgust and fury

B) Relief and acceptance

C) Frustration and sadness

D) Cynicism and bitterness

2. What best describes Nick’s reaction after the fight between Coby and the Eggleston twins?

A) Grief about Coby’s suspension

B) Guilt for not standing up to the twins

C) Joy that the twins ended up in the hospital

D) Awe at Coby’s fighting skills

3. Which of the following literary devices does this quotation include?

“...you and Coby / have been as tight / as a pair / of shin guards.” (“Ever Since First Grade”)

A) Alliteration

B) Simile

C) Personification

D) Understatement

4. How do Nick’s feelings shift toward books and reading?

A) He loves to read until Mr. Mac insists he read a certain book; then he stops reading altogether.

B) He struggles to finish a book because he gets too distracted until April suggests a book.

C) He reads sometimes for joy; then, he decides to compete in a spelling bee and reads constantly.

D) He resents his father’s insistence that he read; later, he realizes the joy books can bring.

5. What best describes Nick’s relationship with words?

A) Nick rarely speaks, unsure of what to say and unable to choose the right word until he meets Mr. Mac, who encourages him.

B) Nick relishes new words, using them in writing and speaking, and eagerly sharing them with his father each day.

C) Nick uses words compactly, choosing just the right ones and avoiding the others, taking pride in his efficiency.

D) Nick has mastered many words, sometimes using them extremely effectively, and sometimes shoving them away.

6. How does the relationship between Nick and April change over the course of the novel?

A) They go from dance partners to friends to dating.

B) They start out dating but then break up.

C) They are friendly but become somewhat hostile.

D) They meet while horseback riding and become good friends.

7. Which of the following best describes Nick’s relationship with his mother?

A) Distant and obligatory

B) Loving but with ups and downs

C) Competitive and angry

D) Consistent until his soccer game

8. What helps Nick and his father finally connect?

A) Nick’s father sharing about his childhood

B) Nick winning his soccer game

C) A vacation to Florida

D) Reading together at the hospital

9. What mood does the following quotation most accurately build?

“you can’t sleep / your head aches / your stomach’s a wreck / your soul’s on fire” (“For the Rest of the Week”)

A) Uncaringly listless

B) Tentatively worried

C) Tormented and stressed

D) Wistful and wishing

10. How does the title, Booked, connect to the plot of the book?

A) Coby gets booked from the soccer game.

B) Nick books a trip to Kentucky to visit his mother.

C) Mr. Mac books a rap venue to perform at.

D) April decides to write a book.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. What are some of Mr. Mac’s traits and characteristics?

2. How is Mr. Mac’s dragonfly box symbolic?