Abstract
Bishop suggests books can act as mirrors that offer personal validation as readers see themselves and those shared experiences reflected back from the books; also, books can serve as windows and sliding glass doors as readers view and imaginatively enter other worlds that offer different perspectives from their own. The unit took place in Adrienne's English language arts/ social studies classes with 16 seventh grade students in a rural K-8 school located in the southeastern United States. Through the stories of diverse characters (specifically, enslaved people from the West Coast of Africa and their descendants, Vietnamese refugees, otherworld islanders, and characters with disabilities and unique gifts), readers gain powerful insights into historical times and events such as the Middle Passage, Amelia Earhart's final flight, the Vietnam War, and the heart and soul of the book-the slave ship Zong. Adrienne incorporated persona poetry by: (1) teaching her seventh graders to thoughtfully read, experience, and examine mentor texts with a focus on craft and structure (2) modeling how to walk into the wardrobe and write the persona poem from the perspective of a main character (Raft King) in A Crack in the Sea through a coauthored class poem, and (3) inviting students to independently walk into the wardrobe, try on, and borrow craft and structural features from mentor poems in order to compose their own persona poems from the perspective of a self-selected book character.