Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Have you ever read a novel in verse? What was it, and what was the reading experience like? Whether or not you have read a verse novel, what might influence a writer to choose that format for telling a story?

Teaching Suggestion: Students may be unaccustomed to reading a novel in this format, so introducing them to it can be helpful in training them to think about how to analyze the decisions authors make in telling a story and how poetry creates different effects than prose. It might be beneficial to introduce terms if students have little familiarity (prose, verse, stanza, couplet, etc.).

• The American Academy of Poets offers a definition of what makes a novel in verse.
• Book Riot has compiled a list of novels in verse.

2. What do you know about Muhammad Ali? What accomplishments is he known for? In what ways might he have inspired others?

Teaching Suggestion: Students might be familiar with Muhammad Ali from US history courses and conversations about Malcolm X and the African American freedom struggle.