Semester of Graduation
Fall 2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
EDD-Secondary and Middle Grades Education
Department
Bagwell College of Education
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Jennifer Dail
Second Advisor
Dr. Darren Crovitz
Third Advisor
Dr. Jillian Ford
Fourth Advisor
Dr. David Glassmeyer
Abstract
This qualitative, arts-based study examined how tenth grade students in a rural early college Multicultural Literature course engaged with and reinterpreted canonical texts through poetic counter-narratives. Grounded in culturally responsive pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2017), and poetic inquiry (Faulkner, 2019), the study explored how students from marginalized backgrounds used poetry to articulate identity, resist erasure, and construct belonging within an academic context that often privileges dominant cultural narratives.
Data sources included 22 student poems, five semi-structured interviews, four end-of-unit reflections, and researcher memos. Analysis used a triangulated approach: qualitative coding in ATLAS.ti, computational text analysis through Voyant Tools, and manual aesthetic coding to capture nuance beyond lexical frequency. Two research questions guided the study: (1) How do poetic counter-narratives created by students engage with and reinterpret canonical texts? and (2) In what ways do students’ poetic counter-narratives reflect identity, resistance, and belonging in a rural early college setting?
Findings indicated that students metaphorically reworked key images from Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, reframing canonical finality and determinism into themes of liminality, memory, and cultural continuity. Students’ reinterpretations centered on ambiguity, relational survival, and alternative futures, illustrating that canonical texts became, for these participants, springboards for reauthoring meaning. The analysis also revealed that poetic counter-narratives enabled students to critique institutional pressures, express cultural identity, and affirm belonging through relational and community-centered language. Five themes emerged across poems, interviews, and reflections: Liminal Choice and Becoming; Memory, Death, and Continuity; Institutional Pressure through Voice; Belonging, Longing, and Love as Counter-Sovereignty; and Resistance and Reinterpretation.
The study highlights the value of remix poetry as an instructional practice that supports critical literacy, cultural affirmation, and interpretive agency. Implications point to the importance of designing curricula that treat student voice as central to meaning-making, recognizing creative and multimodal expression as legitimate academic work. The study contributes to scholarship on arts-based research, culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies, and rural education by demonstrating how poetic counter-narratives open possibilities for student identity development, resistance to marginalization, and reinterpretation of literary tradition.