Verse Novels as Transitional and Identity- Forming Spaces for Young Adolescents

Abstract

Secondary literacy instruction demands that educators present engaging material to students with a range of reading abilities and interests. As former secondary ELA teachers, we recall how stamping out iambic pentameter or extolling the virtues of Emily Dickinson only went so far for an audience yearning to hear words that rang true to their identities. As educators preparing students to work with middle grades students, we are constant readers and seek authentic and relevant texts to share with young adolescents. In the past decade, verse novels have gained momentum as an inviting medium for presenting personal narrative and intersections of identity in poetic form (Cadden, 2011; Curtis, 2019). Many contemporary verse novels also face difficult sociopolitical issues head-on: police violence, the carceral system, racism, immigration, cultural identity, and sexuality.

In this article, we discuss the affordances verse novels offer adolescent readers for identity exploration, based on our experiences using them in middle grades classrooms and teacher preparation courses. We highlight two memoir-based verse novels, Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson, 2014) and They Call Me Güero (Bowles, 2018), that could help students see how poetry can center joy and make space for their lived experiences.