Guest Post by Nicholas Kuchar ‘16: 

By second semester senior year, Gilman seniors start to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. My English elective, Mr. Malkus’ class, Rites of Passage/Coming of Age, provides a great outlet for these contemplations. The class is designed to use novels, projects, and questions to prompt internal reflection and then class discussions.

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Rites of Passage

teacher Larry Malkus with Nick Kuchar[/caption]

While it is stereotypical that by second semester, most seniors have ‘given up’ on schoolwork, these class discussions certainly debunk that theory. Everyone is engaged and shares similar life stories and rites of passage, and we are discovering, day by day, that even though all of us are different, we all share universal moments of personal growth. Senior year is one of the last times to be a kid, and one of the first times to start being an adult.

By discussing the works of classic authors, like Ernest Hemingway, and comparing them to our own lives, Rites of Passage has shown us how far we have come, and how much further we still have to go in our journey of life, and there is no better class to capstone senior year than this one.