"A place of exploration, but also a safe harbor” : the pedagogical potential of verse novels for English language learners

Verse novels have been described as “the most striking development in literature for young people in the young twenty-first century” and there is evolving awareness of the format’s capacity to “carry us to new heights of classroom instruction” (Cadden 129; Brenna et al. 34). Yet despite this growing prominence, the pedagogical potential of the verse novel for English language learners remains markedly underexplored. In this thesis, I conduct a close reading of two middle grade verse novels that center complex place-based and linguistic identities - Shifa Saltagi Safadi’s Kareem Between and Jasmine Warga’s Other Words for Home - using a layered approach to spatial analysis that draws on principles of feminist cultural geography and critical mobilities studies. Through analysis of these verse novels, I develop identity-oriented pedagogical insights for English language learners, building upon theoretical perspectives that suggest this spatial framework holds potential to equip teachers and students with tools to critically examine the spaces and places of characters’ literary worlds and learners’ everyday realities (Hamilton-McKenna and Rogers 64). I forward students' creation of identity texts as a practical culmination of a series of lesson plans that “interpret[s] literacy engagement as inseparable from student identities” and offers a foundation for educators to expand upon, championing affirmative depictions of complex transnational identities and empowering diverse learners to “further reconceptualize themselves, others, and their multiple worlds - allowing for unique and dynamic forms of belonging to emerge” (Cummins 566; Hamilton-McKenna 321). This thesis contributes to an underexamined area at the intersection of literary analysis, language education, and identity-oriented pedagogical practice, ultimately suggesting the verse novel offers highly generative form, content, capacity for spatial exploration and potential to be further uncovered and enjoyed by researchers, teachers and English language learners alike.