Re-evaluating Coming of Age

Paul Czuprynski

     Raise your hand if you want to revisit your teenage years!  Most likely you’re not raising your hand, either because being a teenager can be ridiculously difficult or else you don’t want to be someone else’s entertainment for the evening.  When I was in my not-so-long-ago adolescent years, I was constantly evaluating myself, trying to understand my place in the world around me.  Sometimes this led me to be more confused than ever.  I would battle with peer pressure, self-doubt, immaturity, and anxieties about my future.  I believe that nearly all adolescents experience those same worries and battle similar battles.  What is the best solution to alleviating these adolescent anxieties?  A good coming of age book of course!

     All joking aside, coming of age texts are a great tool to help teens connect to their world while developing a deeper sense of self in a time that is riddled with confusion and uncertainties.  I emphasize a connection to their world because it is through the surrounding world that identity often emerges.  Perhaps hundreds of years ago, parents or even grandparents, teachers, and even officials were able to understand their youthful charges.  But as technology developed, the world is changing constantly, drastically, and quickly.  No longer is it likely that adolescents can be completely understood by the adults around them, because in a very real way they are growing up in a different world. 

     I selected the following texts because they incorporate contemporary issues and pressures of teens within meaningful and engaging stories.  It is my hope as an educator that this set of texts will be helpful and truly benefit their readers.  These texts illustrate many of the struggles teens face and allow students to connect to the themes present within.  Qualities such as perseverance, determination, and constant fighting work to set up success and self-growth.  The bottom line is that these texts are insightful and extremely enjoyable.  Providing students with texts such as these will help to break the popular notion that reading is not cool and that books cannot be enjoyable. 

Alexie, Sherman. (2007). The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tells the story of a ninth grade Indian boy and his struggles of being a Native American on the Spokane Indian reservation.  Junior, the central character of the novel, relays his experiences in a diary form that is witty and humorous while also exposing the many forms of oppression still surrounding Native American culture.  His “diary” traces his freshman year experience in two very different high schools.  After being suspended for reacting angrily to the extreme poverty and educational apathy in Wellpinit High School on the reservation, he decides to take his education to the all-white high school off the reservation.  This decision alienates him from his fellow Native Americans and causes him to be bullied and teased wherever he goes.  Junior’s experience as a “part-time Indian” is his struggle to be judged for qualities beyond his race.  As the year wears on, Junior learns about life and culture in two worlds and comes to situate himself in both the Indian world and white world.  Despite the grim beginnings of his freshman year, Junior pushes himself and others to overcome racial and cultural differences.  This becomes easier for Junior as he explores his own identity within these two worlds and comes to understand himself―learning the true value of friendship, family, culture, and education as his year comes to an end.

But let’s face it, non-Indian students will want to know why they have to read a book about an Indian, someone they initially say they cannot relate to.  I think it becomes clear within the first five pages of the book that that belief could not be more wrong.  Once Alexie’s engaging voice draws readers in, they are able to see how Junior’s struggles are not so different than their own.  Adolescent readers will be able to relate to his pressures, fears, doubts, and struggles because they are genuine and real to the core.  Freshman year of high school is a scary time for many students.  It is a time of new experiences with new people and unknown obstacles.  The adolescent years are riddled with anxieties surrounding the phenomena of “coming of age;” becoming an adult; becoming a new person.  While Junior’s story teaches us much about Native American life, it goes beyond that to illustrate the many ways that all cultures are connected to one another.  The cross-cultural benefits of this novel are inexpressibly high and it truly does show that even though the process of “coming of age” is no easy task, it is one that can teach us much about ourselves and our surrounding world(s). 

For teaching purposes, there are countless activities that make this text a great one to include in the classroom.  As having taught it myself, I can say this first hand and even though I did include many activities working with Part-Time Indian, I barely scratched the surface.  One of my favorite activities, however, was taking full advantage of the drawings within the novel and connecting them to the idea of accomplishing dreams and goals.  This involves the students drawing self-portraits, working in groups and sharing to one another, then coming to the board to write what their dream in life is.  Apart from working like a think-pair-share activity, this leads to great class discussion on culture and support systems when the teacher asks, “How many of these dreams could be accomplished if no one or nothing was there to guide and support you?”

Stork, Francisco X. (2009). Marcelo in the Real World. New York, New York: Arthur A. Levine.

 Marcelo in the Real World is a compelling and emotional story of a boy’s integration into mainstream society.  Marcelo, the 17 year old protagonist, is definitely not normal.  He hears music in his head, what he calls “internal music” (IM), often refers to himself in the third person, and takes longer than normal to process information.  His “cognitive disorder” as his dad calls it, is similar to Asperger’s syndrome and appears to be on the autism spectrum.  As Marcelo prepares to enter the summer before his senior year in high school, a special education high school, his father approaches him and asks him to do work for his law firm over the summer.  The reluctant Marcelo agrees because he does not want to spend his senior year mainstreamed in the public high school, which is his father’s alternative.  After beginning his work at the firm, Marcelo’s entire perception on the world is turned inside out.  He becomes aware of just how naïve and sheltered his life has been as he is forced to negotiate within the jealousy, greed, and corruption that is the “real world.”

Marcello tackles the challenging subject of disabilities in a way that helps readers understand that “different” is not always synonymous with “bad” or “stupid.”  Indeed one of my favorite quotes of the book can be found on the inside cover-flap: “The term ‘cognitive disorder’ implies there is something wrong with the way I think or the way I perceive reality.  I perceive reality just fine.  Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others” (54).  As with Marcelo’s experiences in the law firm, being tricked and taken advantage of regularly, there is much that adolescent readers can learn from his Asperger-like functioning.  By taking us into Marcelo’s head, Stork allows readers access to the precious knowledge that non-labeled students frequently wonder about.  What is it like to think that way?  Or, what does you music sound like?  Humans are extremely curious creatures, adolescents are exceptionally so, and through the narration of Marcelo’s summer, as we metaphorically opens his eyes to the “real world” for the first time, we are able to not only get the answers to questions and wonderings that are rarely spoken about, but we also learn a great deal at the same time.

If I were to teach this book in my classroom, I would incorporate it within lessons that addressed the central themes of the book, especially Marcelo’s “cognitive disabilities,” which ask the question, “What is normal?”  I would start out asking precisely that question and have students write a response and then share to the group.  Exploring the idea of normality would allow me to then highlight common, everyday activities from the “real world” show the many different ways that identical goals can be met.  Such as writing a paper, drawing pictures, playing sports, studying practices, and of course, thinking.  I would break the class into groups and ask them to create a list and discuss qualities that they feel are unique about themselves.  This would then lead into a conversation beginning by me asking them, “What if our society did not allow for you to be any different from one another?  What you wear, what you do, and most importantly, what you think?”  Marcelo in the Real World, apart from teaching an acceptance and celebration of difference, and I’m sure you could see where I’m going with this, is an excellent, unusual yes, but excellent book to lead into a unit on dystopian literature.  I personally would teach 1984 after this text.  The conversations would, I think, be amazing.

Baszile, Jennifer Lynn. The Black Girl next Door: a Memoir. (2009). New York: Touchstone.

The Black Girl Next Door is a memoir of Jennifer Baszile, who has become the first black professor of Yale’s history department.  Unlike many of the books we read in adolescent literature, Jennifer did not struggle with poverty as she grew up.  Rather, Jennifer struggled with being the only black girl in her entire middle class California school, apart from her sister.  I would like to include at this point that I was not able to read the entire book in detail.  Because of a very late change in text selection, I abandoned the book Crossing, to include this one.  Why?  Because I realized after finishing a preliminary draft of this annotated bibliography I had not included any texts featuring a female as the strong, central character.  Also, I noticed that I had included a culturally diverse text set, yet had not incorporated a book featuring an African American as the central character.  That being said, I read this book quickly, skimming at times, but certainly read enough to see that this would make a valuable addition to my text set and within a classroom.

This book takes place in in 1975 but it deals with racism and integration related issues that still affect many black youths.  Jennifer recalls the neighborhood vandals who defaced her parent’s property and wrote racist remarks on their sidewalk.  But the memoir goes beyond the many racist injustices endured by her and her family in the all-white suburb, and tells a story of negotiating identity across cultures.  Jennifer struggles to hold on to her black roots while simultaneously striving to achieve the “American dream.”  Her current neighborhood is strongly juxtaposed with the landscapes of Louisiana and Detroit, which highlight the lengths that her family took so as to lead a comfortable life without the struggles of poverty.  Her story reminds me of one I heard in a C.A.R.E. (conversations about race and ethnicity) dialogue discussion.  A girl told a similar story and concluded with the statement: “I think of myself as a white female. I’m only black when people remind me of it.”  I did not know what to think of that statement, but uneasy is one of the emotions.  Why is it that one must adopt whiteness in order to find success in America?  This connects back to Part-Time Indian.  Jennifer does not adopt whiteness, however, and that becomes her biggest obstacle.  Encouraged by her mother, Jennifer goes out of her way to seek the company of fellow blacks whenever the opportunity arises.  Because of her desire to receive a good education and find success while still holding firm to her ethnical and cultural roots, Jennifer feels isolated, marked, and excluded from the life of being a normal teenager.

Ideally this book should be taught alongside a social studies unit about African American culture after the liberties movement.  But whether or not that is possible, I would design activities around this notion of identity sacrifice in order to achieve the American Dream.  Would I teach it differently in a predominately white suburban school versus a culturally diverse urban school?  Absolutely.  In the first school, for example, I discuss privilege (which I have learned is not so easy—but extremely important nonetheless).  I would create discussions around the notion of, “What do you sacrifice to get a good education?” and, “What would you do if you couldn’t be proud of who you are?”  I know that this will be deep and personal and potentially offensive, but it’s real.  Because of this, though, I think this book is best for a senior or advanced junior English class.  Some activities for teaching this memoir in an urban school would be to have my students create autoethnographies.  These are great tools to accompany the reading of a memoir and help students to reflect critically on the many inherent racisms within culture.  In addition to this, I would explore similar success stories, which the students will generate, and have the students reflect on what success means and what exactly is the “American dream?”  In a way, this text sets up for an examination of the American ideal that is as opposite as Gatsby as one can get.  Prior to this, however, I would also ask the same questions from above and allow the students to lead the class discussion. (Once again, I am aware of the personal and honest thought-provocation of these question, which is all the more reason to ask them).  Wouldn’t it be fascinating to compare the students’ answers with those given from the suburban school?

Bacigalupi, Paolo. Ship Breaker. (2010). New York: Little, Brown and Company.

 Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi would be an excellent addition to any 10^th or 11^th grade English class, especially if thematically taught alongside a global studies class.  Bacigalupi’s science fiction novel plunges readers into a not-so-impossible dystopian future resulting from mankind’s over-exhausting of natural resources.  Nailer, the story’s hero, is a 17 year old boy who works the dangerous job of tearing apart marooned and broken ships in search for valuable resources.  Like the other light crew workers, Nailer is forced to do whatever possible so that he can live to see another day.  Working for a greedy and cruel boss and the son of a drug-addicted and abusive father, Nailer comes across his “way out” one day when he finds a recently crashed ship full of valuables.  There is one small problem, however, there is a girl trapped on board still living.  Debating whether or not he should kill her on the spot, which would makes things easier for him, Nailer shows us the horrors of his terrible and gruesome world; a world explored and critiqued yet eerily possible in many ways.

I say that Bacigalupi’s world within Ship Breaker is possible and in truth many horrifying aspects are real now.  I also said that this book would be excellent if taught alongside a global studies class (with tying themes) because there are many qualities of this text that expose real-life past and present lifestyles.  Bacigalupi seems to be making a clear statement that there is nothing people will not do when their society has forced them into extreme poverty with no way out.  The scene when Nailer must decide whether or not to save a fellow ship beaker makes him think back to the time where he was drowning in oil and another worker left him to die.  Bacigalupi creates a world where instincts for survival battle everything “society” has constructed.  Similar to Lord of the Flies, Ship Breaker analyzes and explores what humans are truly capable of.

For this reason I would incorporate an ethical-based debate within my class.  After reading about half of the book, time in which I would frequently be asking my students, “What would you do in Nailer’s place?” I would set up three groups.  The goal of this student-run symposium would be to develop persuasive literacy skills (orally and then written).  I would have assigned the groups the previous class: three judges and the remainder of the class is split in two.  The judges are to generate 6-8 topic questions from the book that ideally make some sort of connection to the real world.  I as the teacher will sit back and observe (guided only when necessary) as the judges ask the two groups their questions.  The groups will alternate having the first response and the second group must disagree with the first group.  Both groups are to use evidence from the text to support their argument.  As I mentioned, this is beneficial for oral presentation skill development.  I would, however, follow the activity with a persuasive writing assignment.

Rapp, Adam. Punkzilla. (2009). Candlewick Press: Somerville, Massachusetts.

14-year-old Jamie is not the typical character found in literature, yet his existence is all too real.  Punkzilla by Adam Rapp is Jamie’s story as he travels across the country to visit his gay brother who is dying of cancer.  Jamie relays his experiences and thoughts through his writing in a notebook he keeps with him as he travels (similar to Chbosky’s Perks of Being a Wallflower).  The content of the novel is definitely gritty and edgy.  Jamie has abandoned the military school his father forced upon him and is already addicted to drugs.  Satisfied about leaving behind his life of petty crime in California, Jamie takes a bus to Oregon, where his brother attends a community college.  Along the way, Jamie explores his sexuality, shares his fears and frustrations, and finds himself in terrifying situations.  “Punkzilla” as Jamie is known, is a street boy who suffers from bad parenting and even worse influences.  When Jamie finally arrives in Oregon, he is accepted by his brother’s boyfriend and shows that he wants to live a better life, if only he can find acceptance and support.

Although this novel is listed as a YA novel, I would be hesitant to use it in any class below tenth or eleventh grade.  It’s graphic and blunt descriptions of drug abuse, crime, violence, and negligence create a piece that is powerful and emotionally taxing at times.  That being said, I think it would be eye-opening and helpful to include Punkzilla in an older classroom, especially but not exclusively in an urban setting.  As with books like Push by Sapphire, Punkzilla explores street life in a genuine and explicit way.  That, combined with Jamie’s frustrations about his own sexuality (he doesn’t think he’s gay) makes this novel one that explores real-life issues of many adolescents.  Overall I think this book is best suited for a literature-circle usage, in which half of the class reads it while the other half reads another novel with a different twist.

As a teacher, I would take advantage of the form of the book.  Some activities I believe would be beneficial to students would be to have them analyze the reasons Rapp chose to have the story written in diary-like letters that are not even always chronological.  This style is not too uncommon but is definitely one that should be seized for it literary value.  I would ask my students to write journal entries in a similar form, recording their own experiences from that day (I would not read them if they expressed that wish).  I would focus this text on discussions about culture, sexuality, and the idea of change.  An activity I believe would be thought-provoking and illuminating would be to separate the Punkzilla readers into three groups and assign them all the same reading, a particular chapter let’s say.  I would have each group read that same chapter from a different lens: one from a racial lens, one from a social class lens, and the third from a gender/sexuality lens.  Students would then present their “reading” of the chapter to the other groups and make connections to wider social circumstances.

Riordan, Rick, Robert Venditti, Attila Futaki, José Villarrubia, Orpheus Collar, and Chris Dickey. The Lightning Thief: the Graphic Novel. (2010). New York: Disney/Hyperion.

This graphic novel is an adaptation of Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief.  The novel follows the adventure of 12-year-old, Percy Jackson, a “half-blood” demigod born of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon.  His adventure begins when monsters begin attacking him at his school.  Aided by his friend, Grover, and a centaur Latin teacher, Percy escapes to Camp Half-Blood where he learns the truth about who he is.  While he trains he is obsessed with the thought of freeing his mother from the clutches of his uncle, Hades.  He soon leaves on a quest, accompanied by Grover and a daughter of Athena, Annabeth, to rescue his mother while also searching for Zeus’ sacred lightning bolt, which he is believed by the god-king to have stolen.  His cross-country escapade to the underworld brings him into many fights where he learns his own strengths and relies heavily on his friends for help and success.  Always “different,” even amongst fellow demigods, Percy brings self-identity to be a major theme of the novel; as he learns about who he really is he confronts many of the situations necessary for anyone who wishes to move out of childhood and into adolescent maturity.  Indeed, despite being 12 years old, Percy seems to grow into adulthood before our very eyes; confronting his absent father, his abusive and neglectful step-father, and protecting his mother and friends while the whole world is literally out to get him.

This text would be an excellent addition in a seventh or eighth grade classroom.  The first great thing about it is that the story is riveting and absolutely educational.  Riordan cleverly displays his own expertise of Greek mythology by casting the ancient figures into a twenty-first century view.  He shows how culture has the ability to shape, create, and recreate views and attitudes.  In addition to this, Percy and many other demigods suffer and are humiliated by their dyslexia and ADHD.  Riordan illustrates the difficulties of these differences and exposes the ways that children/students are readily disregarded and given up on because of them.  He does the exact opposite by showing us the many ways that dyslexia and ADHD can be something of value rather than a “disease” to cover up with medication. 

The form of the novel makes it easily accessible to literacy learners as well as fun and creative.  Teaching students how to read and negotiate images is just as important as teaching them how to do so with written text.  I would accompany this novel with text samples from the non-graphic Lightning Thief and have students see how the images help with comprehension.  I would then give them a one to two page description of something and have them draw the events using their own interpretations as well as details from within the text.  This helps students develop visualizing skills that apart from making reading more meaningful, make it more enjoyable.  I would reverse the lesson the following day, providing students with a picture this time and having them write a one to two page story based on and using that image.

Sant Gus, Van. (Director). Finding Forrester. [Motion Picture] (2000). United States: Columbia Pictures.

Forrester (Sean Connery) is an author.  But he isn’t just any regular writer, he is the author of a book that is comparable to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Catcher in the Rye; a classic that is to say.  Yet despite his world renowned fame and success, he has not written since then, leaving him absent from the world for decades.  Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) is a talented writer and basketball player who attends a poor performing city school.  Despite his efforts to hide his intellect, state testing sets Jamal apart from others, prompting his school to advocate for his admittance into a wealthy, private college preparatory high school.  Once there, Jamal clashes with his English teacher who believes that Jamal must be plagiarizing his work, because a boy with his background cannot be so talented.  One day, on a dare, Jamal ventures to the apartment of a strange old man (Forrester) and leaves his bag behind in his hurry to get away.  Forrester reads Jamal’s writing and throws it down to him on a later day including his annotations.  Over time the two develop a writing-based relationship and Forrester becomes Jamal’s mentor, making him promise not to tell anyone who he (Forrester) is.  Jamal uses Forrester’s help to write an essay he submits in a competition but his English teacher disqualifies him, stating that he plagiarized.

Throughout this movie, Jamal consistently fights people’s judgments of him and his apparently “stolen” talent.  The film has a lot going for it, apart from a great cast that is.  The theme is encompassing of many of the struggles associated with coming of age texts.  Jamal struggles for acceptance as he juggles two lives (his street life and his private school life).  He proves that through perseverance and battling many struggles, that success is always possible to those who give it their all.  The accusations of his work being plagiarized demonstrate the socioeconomic racisms within schools and give students a voice that is so often ignored.  Through its incorporation of hip-hop/rap, basketball, and a love of writing, “Finding Forrester” demonstrates that it is possible to value and succeed within multiple communities. 

For its use in class, I have several practical teaching ideas utilizing this film.   Teachers could have students reflect in a journal, and hopefully share to the class afterward, times where they were negatively judged because of their appearance or family background.  (I’ve had this conversation in an urban school before and it truly was a priceless class discussion).  In addition to this, the teacher could assign a mini-project in which the students identify their favorite writer and generate: A) a brief paper documenting a mock interview with this particular writer in which the student asks for help writing an essay; B) an essay written with apparently heavy influence from the writer they chose.  For example, I could write a paper that uses J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye to compose a 21^st century examination of how “coming of age” now is different that it was 40 years ago… I would also encourage students to think about the many forms of writing, such as in the form of screenplays, musical lyrics, poetry, or even art.  This assignment could easily be a multi-modal one in which students are able to explore that vast variety of texts and forms of composing text.  Apart from these ideas, I would litter my classes with discussions about social injustice, judgment and stereotyping, and the determination of battling obstacles to realize dreams.