Concrete Rose

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

ACTIVITY 1: “The Meaning Behind a Name”

Research the meaning behind your name and reflect on how you think it relates to you as a person. Compare the names found in Concrete Rose and their meanings, and share your opinion as to whether names need a meaning.

• Interview family members about their names, the story behind your own name, and what names mean to your family or household.
• Reflect on your findings and craft your response by comparing the information you found to Maverick’s experiences with names in his life.

Teaching Suggestion: Share the meaning behind your own name, or why there isn’t a central meaning behind your name, to model the beginning of the activity for students.

Paired Text Extension:

“Give Your Daughters Difficult Names” by Assétou Xango — This link features a video of the poet reading her piece on the weight of a name and the Euro-centric perspective on names that sound different from the white norm.

• Focus on the epigraph at the beginning of the poem. Reflect on the meaning behind each line and what you think Shire means by his message.
• Craft a response poem to Xango’s piece using the last word in every line of her poem to begin every line of your own poem.

Teaching Suggestion: Demonstrate how the response poem is to be crafted by beginning a group-led poem in class, then have students break out in groups to complete their poems by collaborating.

ACTIVITY 2: “Hip-Hop Poetry”

Use at least two of your favorite hip-hop songs, refraining from choosing a song with profanity or sexual themes, and create your own poem by using a blackout poetry method.

• Look for language that mirrors the novel’s themes of Breaking Down Toxic Perceptions of Masculinity, The Cycles of Poverty and Trauma, and The Devastating Effects of Race and Racism.
• Choose songs that inspire you from Britannica’s The poetry of hip-hop: A playlist for your classroom.

Teaching Suggestion: Provide positive feedback about student choices, and share some of your own favorite hip-hop songs and what drew you to them.

Paired Text Extension:

Solo by Kwame Alexander — Compare Blade’s experiences with his father to Maverick’s experiences with his father. Craft a blackout poem from one of the poems in Solo in response.

• Focus on the ways Maverick and Blade navigate their relationships with their fathers. What is similar? What is different?
• Search for verbs and adjectives in Solo that communicate Maverick’s experiences in Concrete Rose to add to your response in poem form.

Teaching Suggestion: Frame the assignment with the TED-Ed video What makes a poem … a poem? to show the range that poetry can encompass to assist with poem creations.