The school`s role in helping your students in the process of identity development
Identity development is an important task in adolescence. Adolescents are supposed to be concerned with developing educational and professional goals while shaping an image of who they are and want to be. School is an important context where adolescents` identity development can be supported. Here, teachers can help adolescents to explore the identity implications of the new ideas, activities, or possibilities they are introduced to at school (e.g., Coll and Falsafi 2010; Flum and Kaplan 2006). Introducing adolescents to new ideas, activities, and possibilities is what teachers and schools are supposed to do. Providing explorative learning experiences is a way of fulfilling this task through a pedagogical approach that stimulates adolescents to connect what they are taught in school to who they are and want to be.
have a good tie with her father and her mom died when she was eight. She is really suffering from this, but she does not tell anyone until she is drunk one night. Alaska is the real mystery of this book. You don’t get to know a lot about her through the book. She is very mysterious.
Chip Martin, better known as the Colonel. A big built guy. He is the best friend of Alaska and the roommate of Miles. He used to live in a trailer with his mom, they were not rich but they had a very good tie.
Takumi, a side character. He is a friend of Alaska and Chip. He is really into hip-hop.
Lara, a Romanian student from Culvers Creek. She was a friend of Alaska and used to date Miles for a while.
Jake, Alaska’s now ex-boyfriend. Doesn’t study at Culvers Creek.
Themes and structure
Looking for Alaska has more themes but one main theme. The main theme of this book is ‘friendship’ because when anyone has a hard time in de book, they can all relay on their friends. You really get into the main character Miles and all his friendships.
Subthemes are love for example, because Miles falls in love with Alaska, Chip and his girlfriend fight a lot.
Another subtheme is letting go. Alaska struggles all her life with the death of her mother. Miles struggles with letting Alaska go when she dies until he realizes it was her own choice.
The book has a different kind of structure. The book is built up in a before and after. You start with one hundred thirty-nine days before and one hundred nineteen days after. The day you go to zero is the day when Alaska died. This is really special because the book builds op to one point, like every book does, but this point is not the end and usually it would be, just like in other books.
Professional opinions vs mine.
For my own opinion I am going to compare professional reviews of the book to mine. I took a review from the Guardian. I am picking a few sentences out of the review. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/13/review-looking-for-alaska-john-green
“His debut novel, Looking For Alaska, is a showcase to the raw talent John Green has, the kind of talent that can make you close the crisp last page of a novel and come out as a different person.”
This review says it is a very good book that makes you think and come out of it as ‘a different person’. I agree to this. It is a book with a lot of depth. It makes you think about a certain situation, for example when Alaska dies. It gives you a different perspective to things. When you are reading the book you sort of get emotionally
