Students need materials selected and organized to satisfy instructional objectives. The materials should match the planned instructional purposes. There is no doubt that many reading skills are necessary and equally applicable to reading content area textbooks or a piece of literature. One objective of this unit is to provide students with an appreciation of literature, being the vehicle to provide experiences for students to see themselves as positive human beings (with feelings, beliefs, values, attitudes, desires, needs and wants).
The selection of Realistic Fiction at the appropriate readability and interest levels helps students achieve a realistic view of themselves. Students who are dealing with difficult problems in their own lives, may read about fictional characters who have had similar experiences. Realistic fictions includes stories that in fact have happened to people in the natural, physical world and social environment whether experienced or imagined by the author. These stories may show people living and facing problems at a particular time or under certain circumstances that might be either familiar or new and unusual for students. However similar or dissimilar the time or circumstances may be people are alike in many ways. These types of stories provide students with an insight of universal problems of growing towards a creative and responsible adulthood. Realistic fiction has a universal aspect of living and growing whether or not the student makes an identification with a specific situation or character. It provides an entertaining story and relates to the developmental tasks of growing up and helps the student build his own values and concepts of self.