77 pages • 2 hours read
Kwame AlexanderA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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: “Rules for Basketball, Rules for life”
The Crossover uses basketball as a structuring force in the novel, but it also gets explicit, with ten poems that posit the “rules” of basketball and how they inform Josh and JB’s goals in life. Take a sport, activity, or other interest of yours and come up with ten “rules” for that activity that can be applied to a person’s life. For each rule, write a 1-3 sentence explanation of how that rule can be applied more broadly.
Your chosen activity should be one that’s personal to you and need not be something connected to academic or athletic excellence. Examples might include rules for competitive videogames (“Rule: If you’re not moving, you’re a target”), playing an instrument (“Rule: it’s all about timing”), drawing (“Rule: Art happens when your plan doesn’t”), or any other topic that interests you.
Teaching Suggestion: Much like Josh and JB in The Crossover, most students have an interest that they see as a key part of their identity. This activity is designed to get students thinking about the things they are passionate about and how they consciously or subconsciously use them to define and organize their lives and goals.
By Kwame Alexander
Becoming Muhammad Ali
James Patterson, Kwame Alexander
Booked
Kwame Alexander
Rebound
Kwame Alexander
Solo
Mary Rand Hess, Kwame Alexander
Swing
Mary Rand Hess, Kwame Alexander
The Door of No Return
Kwame Alexander
The Undefeated
Kwame Alexander
Coretta Scott King Award
View Collection
Diverse Voices (Middle Grade)
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Graphic Novels & Books
View Collection
Juvenile Literature
View Collection
Newbery Medal & Honor Books
View Collection
Novels & Books in Verse
View Collection
Realistic Fiction (Middle Grade)
View Collection