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With the Fire on High is a first-person narrative about food, family and community. It is an own voice coming-of-age novel about an Afrolatina teen mother who dreams of becoming a chef.  Each chapter opens with one of Emoni's recipes, which are often unique combinations of various traditional recipes. It is a joyful story that centers the richness of traditions from which Emoni draws inspiration in order to navigate the challenges she faces.

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I didn't like this. Didn't like the writing, didn't like the characters and didn't like the nothingness that was this plot.
Emoni was super quick to judge everyone even though she knows exactly how it is to be judged for nothing.
Also, every problem she ever had was resolved way too easily and quickly, there never was any real conflict. This was 400 pages long and I really feel like I haven't read about anything at all.
Oh and I had to read the sentence "I let go of the breath I didn't know I'd...more

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I didn't like this. Didn't like the writing, didn't like the characters and didn't like the nothingness that was this plot. Emoni was super quick to judge everyone even though she knows exactly how it is to be judged for nothing.

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The purpose of this curricular text set is to explore the concept of cultural wealth in With the Fire on High. The texts we chose add critical context to the world within the novel and materials will support students as they make connections between the world of the novel and their own lived experiences.

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Format: Google Doc
Justification: This abbreviated list is derived from a longer list (see citations). It offers a short glossary of slang used in the novel. It aligns with a goal of understanding how language functions in various contexts.
Use: Independent
Complexity: Low

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Format: Article
Justification: This article dives into the term "Afro-Latinx" and the complex intersections of this identity. Because the main character of With the Fire on High identifies as Afro-Latinx, as does the author, this article will support readers to have a deeper understanding of the Emoni's myriad struggles.
Use: Teacher-led
Complexity: High

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When Aisha Cort walks into a convenience store with her rich brown skin and tiny dark locs, she knows she has the power to cause confusion by speaking Spanish. Cashiers behind the counter will reply back to her in broken English, showing visible surprise and questioning how she knows the language.

"I'm aware of how people see me," says Cort, a 34-year-old professor in Washington, D.C. whose mother is Cuban and father is from the South American country of Guyana. "But being Afro-Latina is just who I am. It's not something that I've ever had to overthink. "

The term Afro-Latina-or Afro-Latinx, a more recent adaptation of the phrase Latino for anyone who chooses to remove gender binaries from their identity-is used to describe descendants of Latin America with African roots. Simply put: Black Latinos.

In Spanish, nouns are categorized as masculine or feminine. To remove gender bias, many communities are using the term "Latinx" as an alternative to Latino or Latina. If someone identifies as Afro-Latinx or Afro-Latina, it just means: They're a Latin American of African descent. Though it's a masculine term, Afro-Latino is used in the plural form.

There are millions of Afro-Latino people around the world, from Honduras to Puerto Rico to the Dominican Republic, who have hundreds of combinations of skin colors and hair textures. But for many, the unifying experience comes from their visible Blackness. While some believe identifying as Afro-Latino is a personal choice, others argue it has more to do with a person's physical traits-skin color and hair texture, for instance. Black Latinos lack the privilege that lighter-skinned Latinos have, with an experience that's more akin to the racism and struggles of African-Americans.

Popular culture, however, has only just started to catch up to the existence of Afro-Latinas. Historically, when Hollywood or magazine covers have featured Latinas, they've been lighter-skinned celebrities like Salma Hayek, Jennifer Lopez, and Eva Longoria. More recently, Afro-Latina celebrities have been opening up about their identity, like host and actress LaLa Anthony, Orange Is The New Black's Dascha Polanco, and singer and Love and Hip-Hop star Amara La Negra. She told Refinery29 earlier this year that "a lot of Americans are only familiar with the race and colorism struggles of African-Americans, but this exists for Latinos as well."

"Growing up, I didn't identify with Hispanics or Latinas at all because I would see Latina media and I wasn't reflected," says Nydia Simone, 28, a Panamanian and African-American filmmaker. Simone founded the brand " Blactina" in 2017 to represent Afro-Latina pride and is creating a short film called La Bodega. She adds that she first remembers hearing the term "Afro-Latina" in an interview with Dominican singer Kat DeLuna. "I always recognized myself more in Essence and Ebony, and I was confused how I could be Hispanic and Black. Hearing someone phrase it like that resonated with me."

It's not just celebrities leading the charge. Many Afro-Latinas are taking to social media to vocalize their Black pride and ancestry, inspiring dozens of Instagram accounts, meet-ups like the Afro-Latino Festival in New York City, and independent documentary films like Afro-Latinos: An Untaught Story. Each of these stories raise cultural awareness of brown-skinned Latinas, sending the message to the world that Afro-Latinas have always existed. Now, the intersectional identity is finally becoming more visible and more accepted by the mainstream.

Census forms and similar applications may also be changing to reflect the fact that while being Latino, Latina, or Latinx is an ethnicity-a way to define the culture you relate to based on where your family is from-your race is more closely associated with your physical attributes.

In 2016, the Pew Research Center issued their first nationally representative survey to ask Latin-Americans whether they identify as Afro-Latino. They found that 1 out of 4 Latinos in the U.S. identify as Afro-Latino-which means one in four people in the United States would need to check both the "Black" and the "Latino" box on census or application forms. But as it stands, they're typically forced to choose one or the other.

I think Afro-Latinx is really giving people a new access point to being able to say: 'Here are the many things and places I come from.'

The Pew Research Center also found that Latinos with roots in the Caribbean are the most likely to identify as Afro-Latino. It makes sense: During the transatlantic slave trade, more African slaves were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the islands than to South America or what would later become the United States. Add to that the fact that many enslaved Black women were raped by slave owners, and the result is a very complicated legacy of racial identity for the ethnic group that would eventually be called Latino.

And one result of that painful history has meant that many Latin American descendants ignore their African roots-or reject them all together.

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"For some of the people in my family, good is associated with whiteness, and Black is associated with being inferior," says Alicia, a 31-year-old Dominican-American who preferred not to share her last name because of the way her family might feel about her admission. "Members of my family definitely make jokes about other people because of their skin shade or their color...those are things that are not uncommon in Latino culture."

Because of those stigmas and stereotypes, for many Latina women, proclaiming themselves Afro-Latina is revolutionary; a direct challenge to the notion that Latinos can't also be Black-and a statement that Black is, indeed, beautiful.

But making that statement isn't always easy. In September, Afro-Latina meteorologist Corallys Ortiz wore her natural hair on-air for WBBJ in Jackson, Tennessee. A viewer named Donna called in multiple times to tell Ortiz that she hated the look, even leaving a racist voicemail calling Ortiz's hair "n*ggery looking."

Ortiz recorded her own reaction video to the voicemail and posted a passionate response online defending her choice to be natural.

"For years on end, women of color have always been told their hair wasn't professional or 'neat' enough for the workplace, and for years women of color would have to adhere to 'white beauty standards' in order to get ahead," Ortiz wrote.

"For a while, I didn't love my curly hair, but now I love wearing it both ways," Ortiz says now. "I feel like that's happening more often now: People are embracing their identities and not chemically straightening their hair. They're getting more comfortable wearing their hair how it looks naturally."

The rise in Black consciousness amongst the Latino community is also on display everywhere from merchandise to fictional characters. One of the most popular items on the hair care company MicMas Remix's website is with the phrase "Todo pelo es pelo bueno," which translates to "all hair is good hair." It's a play on the common Spanish phrase "pelo malo," often used in Latino culture to describe "bad hair"-or Afro-textured hair. And last year, DC Comics co-created an anthology featuring the first Afro-Latina superhero, La Borinqueña, a Puerto Rican college student who finds her superpowers by going to her family's island of origin.

My being, my space, my body is not up for an argument. It's not up for debate that I exist in this world that you also exist in.

While all of these moments are groundbreaking, they don't mark the beginning of Afro-Latina consciousness in America.

"There have been movements about negritude for years and years and years. And I think this is a new generation's arrival," says Elizabeth Acevedo, an award-winning Dominican-American author and writer of , whose spoken word piece "Afro-Latina" went viral in 2015. "On the one end, it's for the Afro-Latinx folks like me who really didn't grow up with the language of Blackness in our households. People like me who have realized: I've always known there was a history we didn't talk about..."

"The other side is that it's the folks who knew they were Black, whose parents were like 'You are Black,' but maybe didn't always know how to configure that with their Latinx side," she adds. "I think Afro-Latinx is really giving people a new access point to being able to say: 'Here are the many things and places I come from.'"

Jazmin Samora, a 28-year-old Afro-Latina Dominican photographer who lives in New York City, says she is reminded of her Blackness at every turn.

"I had to choose on the playground as an 8-year-old if I wanted to be Black or if I wanted to be Latino, based off of the way other children had been learning history, race, and ethnicity," she says. Samora has recently stopped straightening her hair with chemical relaxers, opting to let her afro grow.

Since, she says sometimes people won't speak to her in Spanish at the airport, a microaggression that can be painful.

I had to choose on the playground if I wanted to be Black or Latino based on what other kids were learning about history and race.

" I'm sad to think that there are people out there thinking that I'm not Latina. Like how could you even question my identity? My being, my space, my body is not up for an argument. It's not up for debate that I exist in this world that you also exist in," Samora says.

It's a reality that highlights one of the many challenges of this growing movement. With the increasing popularity of the term Afro-Latina (or Afro-Latinx), who really gets to claim it?

Puerto Rican actress Gina Rodriguez, for example, has gotten heat for calling herself Afro-Latina while having fair-skin and straight hair, giving her a privilege that darker-skinned Latinas don't have.

1 out of 4 people in the U.S. identify as Afro-Latino.

Samora believes this is indicative of a larger issue: Afro-Latino isn't a trend or a phase, but people wanting to claim Blackness at their convenience is.

"I have a real problem with that, because this is a safe space that we've created for ourselves," says Samora. "I think a lot of people want to say they're oppressed so that they're able to hop between identities and be accepted amongst everyone. But for women like me, this is a term that encompasses all our identities under one name so we can feel comfortable and not have to pick and choose. If you can pick and choose, you definitely are not Afro-Latina."

While the movement to embrace Black identity expands, there are still women at this intersection who prefer other labels, like Janel Martinez, journalist and founder of the website Ain't I Latina.

"Afro-Latina is designed to center Blackness, but I have since seen a shift over the years," says Martinez. As a black Honduran who is also Garifuna (a distinct ethnic group also present in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize), Martinez's textured hair, deep brown skin, and daily experiences leave her searching for a term for her Blackness that is completely unapologetic. So she's starting to refer to herself as negra, a Spanish word that translates simply to: "Black woman."

"Afro-Latina is a term that I use for convenience purposes, when I'm saying 'I'm a black woman while culturally I feel my community is in Latin America,'" says Martinez. "But we were Black before these terms, and we are Black after. As we are navigating through this crazy political climate, I'm seeing a greater need for Black people across the diaspora to be unified."

But even as the movement grows and evolves, there are still Latinos who aren't ready to fully embrace their roots just yet.

"Afro-Latina is a new thing- and I don't think anything is wrong with it, but I don't think I have that awareness," says Reina, a Brooklyn-based Latina who also chose not to be named because of her complicated relationship with her identity. Despite being mistaken as African-American frequently and even dating Black men, Reina says she feels the term Latina is sufficient to describe her experience.

"If someone called me an Afro-Latina, I'm happy to be like 'Yeah, I definitely have African roots, I'm not shying away from that," she says. "But when I look at myself, I see other things-the texture of my hair and color of my skin, I don't necessarily know that I would call myself an Afro-Latina...I don't feel like that is descriptive enough of who I am. I don't think that would define me either."

Aisha Cort says that in the end, "you can't force identity on anybody. But me personally? I think everyone should acknowledge their roots."

Cort's experiences growing up as an Afro-Latina at a predominantly white school taught her that beyond her family, she may be perceived as an outsider, but her Blackness and her Latina identity would always be one in the same. She's even turned her knowledge of native language into entrepreneurship, launching her own Spanish tutoring business and encouraging other Black women-however they identify-to learn another language.

It's a peace of mind she wishes for all the women who look like her-who may be ignored, questioned, or told they aren't enough.

"Sometimes you feel like you have to prove it, but I got over that a long time ago," says Cort. "I don't have to prove anything to anybody. This is me and I just happen to be a wonderful hybrid."

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More Latinas Are Choosing to Identify as Afro-Latina

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When Aisha Cort walks into a convenience store with her rich brown skin and tiny dark locs, she knows she has the power to cause confusion by speaking Spanish. Cashiers behind the counter will reply back to her in broken English, showing visible surprise and questioning how she knows the language.

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Format: Article
Justification: The main character of With the Fire on High lives in a low-income, immigrant neighborhood. In the chapter "A Tale of Two Cities", Emoni describes how race, socioeconomic status, and immigration explain the makeup of the neighborhoods of Philadelphia. This text allows students to connect the anchor text to the real, lived experiences in America's major cities.
Use: Teacher-led
Complexity: High

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About a third of the homes on West Oakdale Street between 15th and 16th in North Philadelphia are empty. Six vacant lots interrupt the narrow rowhouse block. On a recent November afternoon, brown tendrils of dead ivy cling tightly to the roof of one abandoned home and blanket the brick below. A thriving colony of feral cats boldly holds court among the piles of litter at the east end of the street, within sight of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority's North Philadelphia station.

Nearby there are blocks in worse shape, so blasted that they appear touched by the hand of God or by some implacable force of nature. Closer to Broad Street and along major thoroughfares like Lehigh Avenue stand the faded remnants of North Philadelphia's 19th-century past.

When Alex Peay moved to Philadelphia from New York City 10 years ago, the scale of the disinvestment astounded him. He now lives about a 15-minute walk from West Oakdale Street.

"I've seen it in New York, but not to this scale," says Peay, who runs a nonprofit called Ones Up, which helps disadvantaged youth learn professional skills. "There are just blocks and blocks of abandoned houses. And you go down Broad Street and notice that at one time that was a busy, high-end area. Now there's nothing. You're like, 'what the hell happened?'"

An abandoned wholesale crabs and water ice business sits at Lehigh Avenue and West Oakdale Street.

There are many reasons for North Philadelphia's desperate state. But one of the most profound can be traced back to an 80-year-old social engineering effort, when the federal government exacerbated racial wealth disparities and housing segregation across the United States.

Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government involved itself in the national economy as never before. But as it struggled to revive the housing market after the Great Depression, it spurned the opportunity to maintain or foster integrated neighborhoods. Instead the federal government encouraged mortgage lenders to withhold credit from older urban neighborhoods, immigrant communities and, especially, areas where African-Americans or other people of color lived.

The process came to be known as "redlining," because of the way that banks and federal agencies marked maps of the neighborhoods where mortgages should be withheld, chalking them off from the rest of the city with red ink. North Philadelphia and its cousins across the U.S. were choked off from credit, the lifeblood of any healthy community.

"The federal government may not have had their hand in every transaction, but they are the ones who shaped the commercial lending culture across the country," says N. D. B. Connolly, professor of history at Johns Hopkins University. "It was a feedback loop between the federal government and the local level."

In many parts of Philadelphia, the cycle remains largely unbroken today.

How the New Deal Segregated Philadelphia, and America

The New Deal gave birth to an array of federal agencies intended to stabilize the capsizing housing market, and create jobs in a moribund construction sector and shelter for those in need. The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) staved off foreclosures by refinancing hundreds of thousands of existing mortgages, while the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) jump-started housing construction by insuring millions of mortgage loans issued by skittish private lenders. During the same period, the federal government began to finance the construction of public housing units to provide homes for working-class families.

All of these efforts were integral parts of the New Deal and helped save millions of Americans from foreclosure, unemployment and homelessness. But they were also each, to varying extents, segregationist.

Until civil rights activists brought the Federal Housing Administration to heel during Lyndon Johnson's presidency, the government agency refused to insure in black neighborhoods and worked relentlessly to enforce segregation in America's rapidly growing suburbs. The FHA operated with such blatant racism that, in 1955, one of the nation's leading housing experts wrote that its policies "could have been culled from the Nuremberg laws."

But while the FHA's influence endures in today's hypersegregated metropolitan regions, the most infamous maps created during the New Deal's dabble into residential real estate came from HOLC. These "Residential Security Maps" graded neighborhoods on their perceived investment risk and creditworthiness. Areas deemed to carry the least risk of mortgage default got graded "A" and colored green, while those neighborhoods considered "hazardous" and high-risk got a D grade and red shading.

The HOLC maps are where the term "redlining" originated. They represent some of the starkest visual images of 20th-century housing discrimination.

Operating on the principle that older neighborhoods could not be restored and were inevitably trending downward, many historic urban neighborhoods were rated D by HOLC. But it wasn't only the age and condition of an area's buildings and infrastructure that determined its rating.

The agency hired armies of local real estate agents to appraise the properties and neighborhoods, many of whom had already done racist mapping projects for the private sector and brought the same biases into their new government gig. The appraisers hired to conduct the mapping often employed discriminatory judgments against African-American neighborhoods. (One HOLC map in Richmond, Virginia, contained a scribbled appraiser's note that a neighborhood's weathered building stock was " Bad for whites; Fair for darkies. ") These resulting maps largely reflected earlier documents used by the real estate industry.

Areas populated by African-Americans were inevitably considered high-risk and rated D. Recently immigrated European groups, like Jews and Italians, warranted lower grades too.

In Philadelphia, many D-rated areas remain wanting for investment. Segregation remains endemic, if unofficial. In 2015, 41.6 percent of people in Peay's North Philadelphia neighborhood were living below the poverty line, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Two-thirds of the population identified as black.

Yet some of today's trendiest neighborhoods like Fishtown, Manayunk and all of South Philadelphia were redlined as well, despite having small brown and black populations (if any) in the 1930s. Instead these areas were rated D because of their dense rowhouse nature, their mix of recently arrived European ethnics, and the factories that were interlaced with residential building stock. Appraisers colored tony Rittenhouse Square yellow, rating it as declining, while more suburban areas of the city, sections like West Oak Lane, earned the highest ratings and have since weathered white flight and economic destabilization. Society Hill is today one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods but on the HOLC map it is red. The urban renewal movement that would come after World War II hadn't yet transformed the area into a stronghold custom made for well-to-do urban dwellers.

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About a third of the homes on West Oakdale Street between 15th and 16th in North Philadelphia are empty. Six vacant lots interrupt the narrow rowhouse block. On a recent November afternoon, brown tendrils of dead ivy cling tightly to the roof of one abandoned home and blanket the brick below.

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Format: Video playlist
Justification: This playlist explains the concept of cultural wealth and its six tenets. In With the Fire on High, Acevedo humanizes her main character in a way that allows readers to see beyond her so-called deficits. These videos help students reframe their view of the characters, as well as the people in their families and communities.
Use: Teacher-led
Complexity: Medium

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Read more about cultural wealth: http://bit.ly/cultural-wealth-info Learn about Emerging Leaders at http://www.emergingleaderspdx.org We're excited to introd...

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From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award longlist title The Poet Xcomes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright. Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been about making the tough decisions-doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Even though she dre...

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From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award longlist title The Poet Xcomes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright.

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Format: A short video that introduces the author, Elizabeth Acevedo.
Justification: A context building element. The video offers context that may help students to understand the language used in the novel. In addition, it discusses the recording of the audiobook, which might be helpful for those students who wish to listen to the audiobook.
Use: Independent
Complexity: Low

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Recording the With The Fire on High Audiobook! | with Elizabeth Acevedo

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The Inspiration for With the Fire on High

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The Inspiration for With the Fire on High

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Format: Interview (text, website)
Justification: This interview offers the author's perspective on the characters, her writing process, and inspirations. It provides additional engagement points and context for the anchor text.
Use: Peer or Independent
Complexity: Medium/High

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Well before her debut novel, The Poet X, won the National Book Award for Young Adult Literature, Elizabeth Acevedo was a widely beloved poet and writer. As Acevedo and The Poet X continue racking up accolades, Acevedo is gearing up for the June release of her next book, With the Fire on High.

Much like her first novel, With the Fire on High centers a young Afro-Latina, but this time around her YA novel follows Emoni. The high schooler struggles to balance her desire to be a good mom to her daughter, a good granddaughter to her 'buela, and her love for food and cooking. The novel nods to Acevedo's favorite films ( Like Water for Chocolate) and food (arroz con pollo) throughout. We talked to Acevedo about her new book, how she came up with Emoni's recipes, and how both she and her protagonist break with tradition.
Editor's Note: Can you tell me a little bit about Emoni and her love of cooking and where the inspiration for her character came from? The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Emoni came to me and just started talking in my ear one day.
That was actually one of my favorite parts of the book, the way that her emotions come out in the food. I know that you've talked about being inspired by Like Water for Chocolate. How did you come up with all the recipes Emoni makes in the book? Reading left me hungry! Can you talk a little bit about that? In the same way that Emoni is making the familiar unfamiliar in her food, can you talk a little bit about how that kind of innovation comes into your writing, too?
I love watching Food Network. When I was a kid, that was one of the few channels we had with our basic cable, and I loved it. I was watching this show one day, and I was thinking about this summer when I taught 12th grade English one year in Philadelphia, and they had an amazing culinary arts program. My students had a lot of different histories - several of them were moms, several of them were in the culinary arts programs, they were all trying to get this credit so they could graduate and figure out what was next. And then this girl, this character, just started chatting. It wasn't about food at first, it was about her daughter and her daughter's name. So as the story unfolded, I really was just following this character, who was trying to tell stories through food.

I knew when I first started writing With the Fire on High, that I wanted to have some magic to it, but I didn't know quite how much or where it was going to go. And in Water for Chocolate the food becomes a character, it takes on a personality. I knew I didn't want Emoni's story to be a fantasy. This magic wasn't going to be able to resolve any of the conflicts she had, but I did want it to showcase how she has this fire, this dream, that literally has a life of its own. So even though you get the sense that she doubts her own abilities and her magic, everyone else can see it. I wanted to explore what it means for her to finally lean into this talent that she has inherited. Water for Chocolate felt very similar to me in that regard: It is a generational story, it is about family, it is about love, it is about what we pour into the things that we feed other people.

When I'm cooking, I love fusing different things. So if I'm making arroz con pollo, I might throw in something that has a little bit more Southern in it or even Asian flair. Because Emoni is African-American and Afro-Boricua, I thought about the relationships between different cultures that would make one wonderful dish. So for example, from the book, I took queso frito, which you can find pretty much anywhere in Latin America, and then fried green tomatoes, which are very Southern, but if you put those together, it's almost like a caprese salad, right? So with Emoni's cooking, it's always her taking the history she has and the culture she has and amplifying and fusing them.
This back and forth between tradition and who you want to be is something that both your books have in common.
Sure! My characters hopefully feel like home girls that you know, but then I put them in settings or in situations that amplify their voices in different ways. For example, I've never seen a young adult novel that has a character of color travel internationally, in a way that's not a "returning back home." So what does travel do to a character? What do they learn? I wanted Emoni to have that experience, especially because sometimes the world can feel very limited to our block and our neighborhood.

"One of the things both my books are reflecting on is shame and the different ways that young women learn shame."

I also play a lot with form. With Emoni, there's a lot of back and forth, they're very short chapters, usually you get a sense of what she's dealing with in the present and then you get a throwback memory in the next chapter. It was all about the back and forth between her history, her traditions, what shapes her and her trying to pull forward, find a new path. It's why there are fewer memories near the end, because she's able to finally go forward without feeling like she is the only her mistakes. She doesn't necessarily stop looking back, but she doesn't have to do it quite as often, in order to feel confident in who she is. The form always reflects what is happening in the story.

One of the things both my books are reflecting on is shame and the different ways that young women learn shame. With Xiomara [the main character from The Poet X], it's learning shame about your body and about your womanhood and the ways that religion and the society in our neighborhoods will amplify that. With Emoni, her shame is a lot around the choices that we make about our desires and sexuality and decisions and her story is about undoing or unlearning that shame. I think my stories are trying to challenge the notions of one type of Latina and are instead focusing on how we reinvent our womanhood and strength in a way that undoes all of that vergüenza.

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Elizabeth Acevedo on How Her Second YA Novel Drew Inspiration From 'Like Water for Chocolate'

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Well before her debut novel, The Poet X, won the National Book Award for Young Adult Literature, Elizabeth Acevedo was a widely beloved poet and writer. As Acevedo and The Poet X continue racking up accolades, Acevedo is gearing up for the June release of her next book, With the Fire on High.

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Eating Books- Emoni's Lemon Verbena Tembleque

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Eating Books- Emoni's Lemon Verbena Tembleque

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Format: Blog (text, website)
Justification: The blog touches on the major themes in the novel and models a conventional manner of writing about and responding to a novel. It also offers an example recipe from the book, contextualizing a potentially unfamiliar recipe.
Use: Peer led with individual exploration.
Complexity: Medium, grade level.

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These materials are designed for high school seniors.

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Format: interactive data set, images, and written descriptions
Justification: This data set supports students to better understand the context of the setting of With the Fire on High, and the main character's perspective.
Use: Peer
Complexity: Medium/High

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10 Trends That Have Changed Philadelphia in 10 Years

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To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the State of the City report, we're painting a portrait of Philadelphia through 10 compelling data points that spotlight some of the city's transformative trends over the past 10 years.

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Format: Video
A short video produced by a non-profit group in Philadelphia that depicts the history of a specific neighborhood- El Centro Del Oro
Justification: The video details the history of Puerto Rican immigrants in Philadelphia and offers background and cultural context on that community and ways it shaped a specific neighborhood. This aligns with essential themes in the novel which includes the specificity of the neighborhood Emoni lives in and the immigrant community of which she is a part.
Use: Teacher led with peer group exploration
Complexity: High

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A video produced by Scriber for HACE on the area in Philly known as El Centro de Oro.

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Format: Article
Justification: This article discusses the culinary traditions of immigrant elders. The methods used to recreate these traditional dishes is similar to Emoni's improvisational cooking. It offers context on different culture's culinary traditions. It also invites reflection on ways we transmit traditions and on how cultural assimilation is enforced through food choices. It aligns with  our goals related to collaborative discussions.
Use: Teacher led with peer exploration.
Complexity: Medium

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Newsela | "No Cookbooks Allowed": Seattle pop-up dinners celebrate immigrant cooks

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"No Cookbooks Allowed," a series of pop-up dinners around Greater Seattle, honor the home cooking of the elders in immigrant communities.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1

Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.11-12.6

Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.11-12.3

Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2

Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.4

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)

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Alford, N.S. (2018, October 4). More Latinas are choosing to identify as Afro-Latina. The Oprah Magazine. https://www.oprahmag.com/life/a23522259/afro-latina-identity/

Blumgart, J. & Albert, J. (2017, December 8). How redlining segregated Philadelphia. Next City.  https://nextcity.org/features/view/redlining-race-philadelphia-segregation

Emerging Leaders PDX. (2020, June 12). Cultural wealth - Emerging Leaders PDX. [Video playlist]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7COJvGw0AAlDVdL4y5MG1lTdVMjGyAIc

EpicReads (Director). (2019, March 07). Recording the with the fire on High Audiobook! | with Elizabeth Acevedo [Video file]. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdudy6R6LsI

Oliva, A. (2019, May 3). Elizabeth Acevedo on how her second YA novel drew inspiration from 'Like Water for Chocolate'. Remezcla. https://remezcla.com/features/culture/elizabeth-acevedo-with-the-fire-on-high/

Philadelphia Research and Policy. (2019). 10 trends that have changed Philadelphia in 10 years. [Data set]. Pew Trusts. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2019/04/11/10-trends-that-have-changed-philadelphia-in-10-years

Philadelphia School District Helping First Year Teachers Learn, "Philly Slang" in New Handbook. (2018, August 17). CBS Philly.

Puertorriqueño, T. (Director). (2021, March 14). El Centro DE Oro/ the Golden District [Video file]. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from https://vimeo.com/84250556

Ritchey, R. (n.d.). Emoni's Lemon Verbena Tembleque [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.eatingbooks.com/emonis-lemon-verbena-tembleque/

Vinh, T. (2018, December 17). No Cookbooks Allowed. The Seattle Times.

Wims, T., Abogourin, K., Ryans, H., & Pratico, A. (n.d.). First Year Teacher Handbook (United States, The School District of Philadelphia). Retrieved from https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15116066/2018/08/new-teacher-handbook.pdf

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SFPL

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From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning title The Poet X comes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright.
Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been about making the tough decisions-doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela.

The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it's not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

Plus don't miss Elizabeth Acevedo's Clap When You Land!

From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning title The Poet X comes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright.
Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been about making the tough decisions-doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela.

The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it's not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

Plus don't miss Elizabeth Acevedo's Clap When You Land!

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From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning title The Poet X comes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright.Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been ab...