I read Divergent by Veronica Roth several years ago and really enjoyed it. I was already a fan of dystopian novels like The Hunger Games, Uglies, and The Maze Runner, so a world where everyone is divided into factions based on one defining characteristic was right up my alley.
But looking back at Divergent as a Grade 7/8 teacher raises a different question:
Would I actually teach it?
There is a lot here that middle school students would love. There’s action, romance, competition, a fascinating dystopian society, and a main character trying to figure out who she is rather than simply accepting the identity other people have chosen for her.
There is also considerably more mature content than you might remember.
Violence, death, suicide, attempted murder, psychological manipulation and a particularly important sexual-assault-related fear simulation are all things teachers need to know about before choosing this as a classroom novel.
So, spoilers ahead! Here is what I would want to know before teaching Divergent in Grade 7 or 8.
What Is Divergent About?
Tris Prior lives in a future Chicago where society has been divided into five factions.
Each faction values one particular human quality:
- Abnegation values selflessness.
- Dauntless values bravery.
- Erudite values intelligence.
- Amity values peace.
- Candor values honesty.
Children are raised in their parents’ faction but eventually take an aptitude test designed to determine where they belong.
Then they have to choose.
Stay with their family?
Or leave them behind for another faction?
Tris has grown up in Abnegation, but her aptitude test doesn’t give the expected result.
She fits into multiple factions.
She is Divergent.
And apparently, being Divergent is dangerous.
Tris ultimately chooses Dauntless and leaves her family behind. Much of the novel follows her initiation as she tries to earn her place in a faction where bravery can look an awful lot like recklessness, cruelty and violence.
Meanwhile, Tris begins to realize there is something much bigger happening within the faction system — and that being Divergent may allow her to resist it.
Why Divergent Works for Grade 7/8
One of the strongest classroom opportunities in Divergent is its basic premise.
Ask a group of Grade 7 or 8 students:
If you had to choose one faction, which would you choose?
You’ve already got a discussion.
But then you can complicate it.
Can a person really be defined by one characteristic?
Can someone be brave AND intelligent?
Selfless AND honest?
Peaceful AND brave?
What happens when society decides that one part of your identity is more important than everything else?
That’s where Divergent becomes much more interesting than simply sorting students into fictional factions.
Identity and Belonging
Identity is probably the theme I’d focus on most if I were teaching Divergent.
Tris doesn’t fit neatly into the system society created for her.
And honestly, what Grade 7 or 8 student can’t relate to trying to figure out where they belong?
Tris has to decide how much of her Abnegation upbringing she wants to keep while discovering parts of herself that don’t fit that identity.
She’s brave.
She’s selfish sometimes.
She’s selfless sometimes.
She’s intelligent.
She’s frightened.
She’s complicated.
In other words, she’s a person.
The faction system wants people to believe that they can be reduced to one dominant trait.
Tris’s very existence challenges that idea.
Conformity and Individuality
This would connect beautifully with Uglies and The Giver.
All three novels essentially ask:
What happens when society decides who you are supposed to be?
In The Giver, individuality is sacrificed for Sameness.
In Uglies, people physically change themselves to meet society’s definition of beauty.
In Divergent, people organize their entire identities around a single virtue.
That gives you some fantastic opportunities for students to compare dystopian societies and consider why conformity appears so frequently in dystopian literature.
What Does It Actually Mean to Be Brave?
Dauntless is supposed to value courage.
But the further Tris gets into initiation, the more complicated that becomes.
Is jumping onto a moving train brave?
Is fighting someone stronger than you brave?
Is hurting someone because you’ve been ordered to brave?
Is admitting you’re frightened brave?
Is protecting someone else brave?
The Dauntless faction gives students a really interesting opportunity to distinguish between bravery, recklessness, violence and cruelty.
Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.
And Tris gradually has to figure that out for herself.
Violence in Divergent
This is where teachers need to pay attention.
There is a lot of violence in this book.
Dauntless initiation involves physical combat between teenagers. Tris is beaten and injured during fights, and other initiates are deliberately hurt.
Peter is particularly violent.
At one point, he attacks Edward and stabs him in the eye with a butter knife while he sleeps.
That scene is disturbing.
Later, Peter, Al and Drew attack Tris.
They grab her, restrain her and hang her over the edge of the chasm. Tris genuinely believes they are going to kill her before Four intervenes.
The violence also escalates significantly toward the end of the novel when the Dauntless are placed under mind control and used to attack Abnegation.
People are shot and killed.
Tris is forced into life-or-death situations.
And members of her own family die.
This isn’t fantasy monster violence like much of what we see in The Maze Runner.
These are people deliberately hurting and killing other people.
That’s an important distinction when considering your particular group of students.
Al’s Suicide
This is one of the biggest content warnings I would want teachers to know about beforehand.
Al struggles with Dauntless initiation and participates in the attack on Tris.
Afterward, he tries to apologize.
Tris refuses to forgive him.
Al later dies by suicide, jumping into the chasm.
The Dauntless response makes the situation even more complicated because they essentially memorialize him as courageous.
Tris is angry about this.
She doesn’t view what happened as brave, and the novel opens up some complicated questions about mental health, guilt, masculinity and the way communities talk about suicide.
For some students, this could be extremely sensitive material.
I would absolutely want to know my students before using this as a whole-class read.
The Fear Landscape Scene Teachers REALLY Need to Know About
This is probably the scene I’d be most concerned about a teacher accidentally reaching during a read-aloud without remembering what happens.
During Tris’s fear landscape, one of her fears involves intimacy with Four.
The simulation places them in a sexual situation, and Tris becomes afraid that Four will pressure or force her to have sex.
She fights him off.
The scene is ultimately about Tris’s fear of losing control and not being ready for sexual intimacy, rather than an actual assault occurring between Tris and Four.
But sexual coercion and assault are absolutely what the fear is drawing on.
That’s something I would want to preview carefully before reading the novel aloud to Grade 7 students.
Depending on your students, school community and comfort level, you may choose to read it as written, discuss it, summarize portions, or decide that Divergent isn’t the right whole-class novel for that particular group.
This is very much a know your students situation.
Tris and Four’s Relationship
There is a romantic storyline between Tris and Four.
They kiss and become increasingly attracted to one another, and physical intimacy comes up as their relationship develops.
It isn’t an explicit romance novel by any stretch, but romance and sexuality are more present here than in something like The Maze Runner.
There’s also the power dynamic to consider.
Four is one of Tris’s instructors during Dauntless initiation.
That gives teachers another potential discussion point about relationships, authority and power.
The Deaths of Tris’s Parents
Near the end of the book, Tris reunites with her mother during the attack.
Her mother is then shot and killed while helping Tris escape.
Later, Tris’s father also dies while helping her.
So within a relatively short portion of the story, Tris loses both parents.
These deaths have much more emotional weight than many of the earlier violent scenes.
Students dealing with grief or parental loss may find this part particularly difficult.
Mind Control and Loss of Autonomy
The Erudite leadership uses a simulation serum to control the Dauntless and turn them into soldiers.
Because Tris is Divergent, the simulation doesn’t control her in the same way.
This introduces another really interesting classroom theme:
How responsible are people for actions they were not consciously choosing to perform?
The Dauntless commit terrible acts while under simulation.
Are they responsible?
What about the people who developed the serum?
The leaders who ordered its use?
The people who knew something was wrong but did nothing?
There are some surprisingly sophisticated ethical discussions hiding underneath the action.
Is Divergent Appropriate for Grade 7?
This is where I’d be more cautious.
Could some Grade 7 students handle Divergent?
Absolutely.
Would I automatically choose it for every Grade 7 class?
No.
The reading itself isn’t necessarily the issue.
It’s the combination of:
- Teen violence
- Bullying
- Attempted murder
- Suicide
- Death
- Gun violence
- Psychological manipulation
- Parental death
- Sexual coercion/assault themes
- Romance and sexuality
For an individual Grade 7 reader who enjoys dystopian fiction, I could absolutely see this being a classroom-library recommendation.
As a whole-class Grade 7 read-aloud, I’d want to know the group very well first.
For Grade 8, I’d be more comfortable considering it, although I’d still preview the mature scenes and consider whether communication with families or administration is appropriate in your school community.
Divergent vs. The Maze Runner for Grade 7/8
If I were choosing between the two, I think The Maze Runner would generally be the easier Grade 7 choice.
Both contain violence, death, teenagers in danger and adults manipulating children.
But the violence in The Maze Runner often happens within a science-fiction/horror context involving the Maze and Grievers.
Divergent adds suicide, sexual threat, teen-on-teen brutality, gun violence and more developed romantic content.
That doesn’t make Divergent inappropriate.
It just means I’d do more preparation before using it as a whole-class novel.
For a mature Grade 8 group, however, those same issues could generate some excellent discussions.
Read-Aloud, Literature Circles or Classroom Library?
Classroom Library
Absolutely.
For Grade 7/8 students who already enjoy The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner or other dystopian fiction, this is an easy recommendation.
And because it’s part of a series, students have somewhere to go afterward.
Literature Circles
This might actually be my favourite classroom use.
Imagine a dystopian literature-circle unit with:
Students could compare how each society controls its citizens and, more importantly, how the protagonists begin to recognize that control.
You’d have some incredible culminating discussions.
Read-Aloud
Possibly — particularly in Grade 8.
But this is one I’d definitely reread immediately before teaching.
There are enough intense scenes that I wouldn’t want to rely on my memory from reading it several years ago.
I’d especially preview the fear landscapes, Al’s death, the attack on Tris, Edward’s injury and the final section involving Tris’s parents.
Don’t Forget the Movie Comparison
Like The Maze Runner, Divergent also gives you a ready-made media-literacy extension because there is a film adaptation.
Rather than simply watching the movie as a reward for finishing the book, students can investigate the adaptation itself.
What was changed?
What was removed?
How does seeing the factions visually change your understanding of the society?
How does the movie portray Tris’s fear landscapes?
Are characters presented differently?
Does the film make the faction system easier or harder to understand?
Which changes were probably necessary because film and novels tell stories differently?
And, of course:
Which version did you prefer — and can you actually defend your answer with evidence?
That last part is important!
Final Verdict
I really enjoyed Divergent when I read it.
The faction system hooked me immediately, and I love dystopian books that start with a seemingly simple society and gradually reveal how disturbing that society actually is.
Looking at it now as a teacher, I also think there’s more substance here than students may initially realize.
Underneath the action and romance are questions about identity, conformity, bravery, government control, free will and whether any person can — or should — be defined by one characteristic.
I wouldn’t necessarily make it my first choice for a Grade 7 whole-class read.
But for Grade 8, literature circles, or a Grade 7/8 classroom library?
Absolutely worth considering.
And if your students are already obsessed with The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the book they reach for next.
Overall: 4.5/5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Until next time,
Margaret