Alphabiograhy

My nephew, Kyle has what I think is an interesting school assignment for "Language Arts" (what ever happened to English/Spelling and Reading). He has to write an Alphabiography. It is like writting the story of your life, except you are supposed to write seperate essays for each letter of the alphabet, then collect them all together in booklet format.
He and his classmates have been working on this in class and at home since October. Now they are editing and reviewing their work.

I wish we had assignments like this when I was in Junior High School: grades 7-9 (except now they call that "Middle School" and it is grades 4-8--insert eye rolling emoticon here!). Then I thought, life is continuous lesson, so I am going to write my own Alphabiography using this blog. I may not always go in alphabet order, and some letters may get more then one entry-- well, they should, I am almost three times older....

They are supposed to add a reflection/life lesson at the end of all the essays.

One last note about Kyle's class and the assignment: the teacher has read to the class a book titled "Totally Joe" by Jamie Howe. This book is written in the form of an Alphabiography of the main character, Joe Bunch. Joe is a 7th grader, who is gay. The book details the normal struggles of adolescents, and how Joe is percieved to be different, and how he handles being labeled, and admitting to his family and friends that he is a homosexual. I have read the book cover to cover. It is a well written book. That said, however; I do not believe it should be read aloud to a class. Yes, the book can be made available for students to read. It does have a place in the classroom and school library. But to force students who may not be mature enough to understand what is going on, or able to handle peacefully their classmates who may not be mature enough to take it seriously to listen to it or read it for class, I think is just wrong. It should not be a part of the curriculum.