Exploring ‘The man on the stairs’ as a way of triggering discussion about personal decisions in teenage classrooms

 “This is my number two problem: I am never satisfied with what I have. It goes hand in hand with my number one problem: rushing.”(July, 2008, p20)

The short story “The man on the stairs” by Miranda July provides teachers of young adult readers with a glimpse of what could be used by them as the centre of debate inside the classroom. This paper aim will be to explore the story “The man on the stairs” as a medium to discuss young adult life decisions in the classroom.

Young adults are defined by Eaglen (cited in De Vos, 2003) as part of “that age group who no longer consider themselves children but are not yet considered adults by the adult world.” Adolescence transition to adulthood includes many developmental changes in the body and in the mind for this reason, “The gap between childhood and adulthood is vast--physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually--and it is the teens' task to bridge it” (Koelling, 2004, p.75). The task to complete their transition is not easy to carry out because young adults are in a period of awareness of the causes and awareness of the consequences that the outside world has on them. They are no longer children, now they can think abstractly and they can imagine different circumstances that may affect them.  

Speak out Loud

123 Fake Street

Springfield

1718

President

BBC Network

Shipstreet

London

S1345 PT

Mister President of BBC network,

                We address you to present our newest TV proposal. We have been working on a show aimed at teenagers.

                The show will have different sections such as interviews, games, sketches, music and relevant issues all of them connected with teenagers’ interests.

The title of the programme is going to be Speak out Loud since we believe this name fits perfectly with teenagers need to express themselves in an appropriate environment.

An important feature our TV show has is the fact that the hosts will be adolescents. We discuss this idea among our staff and we all agree that the expected audience will feel identified or even connected when seeing somebody of their same age, having their same interest or sharing the same dress code.

As regards the sections of the show, it will be divided into three segments.

Ø  First segment: Interviews of a famous personality.

The interviewed will talk about his/her adolescence which in time will create a bound between the interviewed and the audience since they may see reflected on the experiences told by the interviewed.

Ø  Second segment: Games of the week/month/year

In this section there will be a game which is going to be analyzed by a member of the audience who may be selected at random from the public or selected via internet by submitting a video on the YouTube channel of the TV show. This will promote the interaction among viewers and hosts.

Ø  Third segment: Music

Different musical genres will be chosen by the audience by mean of the vast social networks such as, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, etc.

We are very grateful of your time and we welcome the chance to work as part of the channel. We deeply believe we may contribute to your TV network.

Yours sincerely.

CLG