Crossing Over to The Crossover: My First Novel in Verse

I’ve just finished Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover (2014). Will I teach it? To what grade levels? How I might integrate it into my curriculum? While muling these questions over, I can’t help but think: didn’t I read somewhere recently that engaging male adolescents in reading often takes extra care and thought? And that teachers need to be particularly deliberate in the texts they select and how they engage male students with those texts? Ah. I cannot remember the source of that information. A cursory search of saved files turns up empty. I turn to Google.

Google serves up an answer to a piece of my question in the form of a 2006 article Alfred W. Tatum published in Educational Leadership (v63). In “Engaging African American Males in Reading,” Tatum argues that educators need to engage adolescents with texts that promote thought and improve their reading outcomes while encouraging resilience in “environments in which [the students] were previously vulnerable.” Tatum further shares that “must-read texts have four characteristics: They are intellectually exciting for both students and teachers, they serve as a roadmap and provide apprenticeship, they challenge students cognitively, and they help students apply literacy skills and strategies independently.”

With Tatum’s guideposts in mind, I’d say The Crossover, with its myriad themes and relevant storyline, could serve as one of those must-read texts in diverse classrooms. Along with the basketball overtone that for some will be the impetus for opening the book, the text presents topics that are highly relatable to males in secondary schools: relationships, loyalty, betrayal (presumed and/or real), family, and loss.

Beyond theme, the text’s poetic hip-hop style tosses up a culturally accessible and enticing entry into the study of poetry and verse. I like The Crossover for this purpose because poetry is one form of writing that seems to be particularly polarizing: people either like it or hate it. If others’ experiences resemble mine, then many have been turned off of poetry as a result of how they were introduced to the form. Why not use a text like this to engage students in verse?

So will I teach The Crossover? Yes. Exactly how? I am not sure just yet, but I’ll flesh out ideas based on the above. Do I still need to track down that research about adolescent males and literature? Yes, and I will this week. Am I glad Google answered a more specific version of my question? Absolutely. We’ve studied Tatum’s research in this graduate program though I do not recall having read this 2006 article (which by the way includes a few compelling text recommendations for engaging Black adolescent males). 15 years on, Tatum remains timely. The timing of the search result with my reading of this text was fortuitous.

Note: I accessed Tatum’s article at www.ascd.org/el/articles/engaging-african-american-males-in-reading.