Educational Guide Assignment Instructions

Humanities

For this particular assignment—which centers on the theme of puberty—I would like for you to consider as many of the physical changes that adolescents experience and how these changes can affect them emotionally, and then try to imagine that you have a child about to enter this very period in her or his life. Then, write a letter-style “guide” to your child in the form of a “time capsule” telling her/him what to expect when that time comes (for ease of advice-giving, males in the class may write a letter to their sons, and females may write a letter to their daughters—the choice is yours, though).

You are welcome to use your own experiences in helping you to conceive the many changes, but be mindful to think about the advice-giving part in positive terms so that your child will be able to understand it and also be able to have a positive attitude toward the changes to be experienced. Nevertheless, you should consider such changes as menarche (girls’ first menstruation) and spermarche (boys’ first ejaculation), adolescents’ heightened nutritional needs, their emotional health, morality, motivation and achievement, gender identity, sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases, and any environmental dangers that you could expound upon, such as driving an automobile, handling firearms, and even taking medication. Some of you may already have young adolescents in your care, but for those of you who are teenagers or just past that age bracket, you are still considered by developmental scientists to be “older” adolescents (or at least transitioning out of that period), so you should be able to offer your perspective in a fairly comprehensive manner—in one direction or another.