LESSON 4
My Voice, My Power
Claiming your story through the written word
50 minutes
RL.7.1, RL.7.2, W.7.3, W.7.4, SL.7.1
Learning Objectives
- Analyze how writing functions as a tool for identity formation
- Evaluate how authors from different backgrounds use writing to claim their stories
- Prepare for the unit writing assignment by developing personal themes and voice
In this culminating lesson, students read texts about young people who use writing as a tool for self-discovery and empowerment. Through an excerpt about a Dominican-American girl who finds freedom in poetry and a passage about a young Black writer discovering the power of journaling, students prepare to write their own identity narratives.
When the Pen Becomes a Microphone
Original composition in the tradition of Elizabeth Acevedo · Inspired by The Poet X
The first time I wrote a poem, I was angry.
Not the polite kind of angry that fades into an apology. The real kind. The kind that starts in your stomach and climbs up your ribs like a vine and sits behind your eyes, hot and blurry.
Mami had just told me — again — that poetry was a waste of time. That I should focus on something practical, something that could pay bills and make the family proud. She said this in Spanish, the way she says everything important, as if the serious things in life can only be spoken in the language closest to the bone.
So I went to my room and I wrote. Not a school assignment. Not a poem for a grade. Just words. My words. Falling out of me like they'd been locked in a closet and someone finally opened the door.
I wrote about the way my neighborhood sounds at 7 AM — the bodega gate rolling up, the merengue from somebody's window, the viejas on the stoop already talking about everybody's business. I wrote about my father's hands, cracked and calloused from construction work, and how those same rough hands braided my hair so gently when I was small that I thought he must have been a different person.
I wrote about being loud in a world that wants Latina girls to be quiet. About having a body that takes up space in a culture that tells you to shrink. About speaking two languages and thinking in a third one that doesn't have a name yet — the language of girls who are figuring out who they are.
When I finished, I read it back to myself. And for the first time in my life, I heard my own voice. Not the voice I use at school. Not the voice I use with my mother. MY voice. The real one. The one that had been waiting.
Ms. Galiano, my English teacher, was the first person I showed it to. She read it twice, then looked at me over her glasses and said: "Xiomara, this is not a poem. This is a weapon. And I mean that as the highest compliment."
I didn't know words could be weapons. I thought weapons were for hurting people. But Ms. Galiano explained: some weapons are for breaking chains. And that's what writing does — it breaks the chain between who the world says you are and who you know yourself to be.
Now I write every day. On the subway, in class, on napkins at the restaurant where Mami works. I write because it's the only space where I don't have to translate myself for anyone. The page doesn't need me to be quieter or louder or different. The page just needs me to be honest.
And honest? That I can do.
The Notebook
Original composition · Inspired by the tradition of Black journaling and liberation writing
My grandmother gave me a notebook when I was twelve. Not a fancy one — just a composition book, the kind with the black-and-white marbled cover that costs a dollar fifty at the drugstore.
"Write in this every day," she said. "Write what happened. Write what you felt. Write what you wished had happened instead."
I thought it was a journal. But my grandmother — who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, who marched when she was younger than me, who still had the scar on her arm from a time she didn't talk about — my grandmother knew it was something else.
"When I was your age," she said, "they didn't want us to read. Did you know that? It was illegal for Black people to learn to read. They passed laws against it. You know why? Because they knew. They knew that once we could write our own stories, we would never accept the stories they wrote about us."
That changed everything.
Every word I wrote after that was an act of defiance. Not loud defiance — not the kind with megaphones and marching. The quiet kind. The kind where you sit in your room at night and write down who you really are, and the act of writing it makes it true.
I wrote about my father teaching me to play chess in Prospect Park and how he always let me win until the day he didn't, and I beat him for real, and he laughed so hard the pigeons scattered. I wrote about my best friend Aisha and how she wears her hijab like a crown and dares anyone to say something about it. I wrote about my neighborhood and how people call it "rough" but never see the way Mr. Henderson waters his roses every morning like he's performing a prayer.
My grandmother was right. The notebook wasn't a journal. It was a mirror. And in it, I saw someone worth writing about.
Narrative Voice
The distinct personality, perspective, and style of the person telling a story; in personal writing, your authentic self on the page
Empowerment
The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in claiming your own story and identity
Liberation
Freedom from oppression, limitation, or control; in the context of writing, freedom to define yourself on your own terms
Defiance
Bold resistance to authority or expectation; writing as defiance means using your words to refuse the narratives others impose on you
Bodega
A small grocery store, especially in a Latino/a neighborhood; culturally significant as a community gathering place
🗨 Discussion
Xiomara's teacher calls her poem "a weapon" and means it as a compliment. What does she mean? How can writing be a weapon — and what is it fighting against?
🗨 Discussion
The grandmother in "The Notebook" connects journaling to the historical prohibition against Black literacy. Why does she make this connection? How does knowing this history change the meaning of writing?
🗨 Discussion
Both narrators describe writing as a space where they "don't have to translate" themselves. What does it mean to have to "translate" yourself in everyday life? Who has to do this, and who doesn't?
💬 Think-Pair-Share
After reading all four lessons in this unit, how would you answer the essential question: How does who we are shape what we say — and how we say it? Has your answer changed since Lesson 1?
Hover over a question to see the teacher guide.
1
Xiomara says she speaks "two languages and thinks in a third one that doesn't have a name yet." What is this third language? Why doesn't it have a name?
Guide: The third language is the internal voice of someone navigating between cultures — it's not fully Spanish or English but a blend of both plus the unique perspective of being between worlds. It doesn't have a name because dominant culture doesn't acknowledge or validate hybrid identities.
2
Compare how Xiomara and the narrator of "The Notebook" each discover the power of writing. What triggers each girl's transformation? What is similar and different about their paths?
Guide: Xiomara discovers writing through anger and personal frustration — it's an emotional release. The Notebook narrator discovers writing through her grandmother's connection to historical struggle — it's a political and cultural act. Both arrive at the same conclusion: writing makes your truth real.
3
The Notebook narrator says the composition book "wasn't a journal. It was a mirror." Explain this metaphor. How can writing function as a mirror?
Guide: A mirror shows you yourself. Writing functions as a mirror by reflecting your thoughts, experiences, and identity back to you — helping you see yourself clearly. For the narrator, seeing herself in her own words helped her understand she was "worth writing about," countering messages of invisibility.
4
Across all four lessons, what role does FAMILY play in shaping voice and identity? Use examples from at least two different texts in your answer.
Guide: Family is both a source of strength and tension across all texts. Great-grandmother's legacy in Lesson 1, mother's sacrifice in Lesson 3, grandmother's wisdom in Lesson 4 — family carries culture forward but also creates expectations that can conflict with self-discovery. Family is the foundation voice is built on.
Pre-Writing: Finding Your Thread
Pre-Writing: Finding Your Thread
Before you begin the unit writing assignment, you need to find your "thread" — the specific aspect of your identity that you want to explore. Use these prompts to brainstorm:
Freewrite 1 (5 minutes): Write about a place that feels like HOME to you. Not just a house — a place where you feel most yourself. What does it look, sound, smell like? Who is there?
Freewrite 2 (5 minutes): Write about a moment when you felt SEEN — when someone understood something about you without you having to explain it. What happened? Why did it matter?
Freewrite 3 (5 minutes): Write about a time you felt UNSEEN or misunderstood. What did people get wrong about you? What do you wish they knew?
The Thread: Look at your three freewrites. Circle words or phrases that repeat. What theme connects them? That's your thread. That's what your writing assignment will explore.
Share your thread (one sentence) with a partner: "My thread is ____________."