Rationale+of+Unit+Plan+Schuster

Coming of Age

 **Rationale**  When does someone make the transition between being a child and being an adult? Most people would answer that the transition happens some time during the adolescent years of an individual’s life, most notably “the teen age years.” Typically the event known as “Coming of age” can be identified by a series of social rituals or events that an individual must go through before being recognized as a true adult. There is a wide array of literary genres that involve a “Coming of Age” event; but there is one genre of literature that is entirely devoted to celebrating instances of “Coming of Age” and that is Young Adult Literature. One of the traits of Young Adult Literature is that the main character(s) of the story have not yet reached adulthood. Because of this many high school students are attracted to these texts because it depicts a character that they can relate to. Young Adult Literature is a fairly new genre in comparison to other texts. The book that gave birth to the Young Adult genre is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The main character of this story is “Ponyboy” who is 14 years old and goes through a series of events that most adolescents can’t help but read on in awe. The second text I intend to use is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee where the main character, Scout, begins the novel at age 6. Although she is young, Scout gives readers a glimpse of what it was like to live during the Great Depression and how the rituals that denote maturity have evolved since then. The last text I intend to use is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky which is a contemporary work when compared to the others. This text serves the purpose of identifying the rituals we have today that mark the entrance into adulthood.  What I am looking for my students to ponder when reading these texts are questions such as “What does it truly mean to come of age?” “Can I relate to the characters in these stories?” “What qualities about these characters change when they make the transition from childhood to adulthood?” “How have the coming of age rituals evolved from years ago?” and the big question to ponder is “What are some coming of age rituals of my generation?” My aim is that this unit plan will not only help my students fall in love with literature again but also to give them a set of positive role models to look up to in these texts.  ﻿**﻿**