Eden C. Stein
Though sexual identity becomes apparent in middle school, the topic is infrequently addressed in school, or only biophysical topics are mentioned. The focus is typically on puberty, disease, and decision making, to the exclusion of social constructs and norms. Thus, students are left to create their own knowledge from sources such as their friends, social media, and books which of course can be biased and misleading. As the topic of sexuality is still taboo in our society, English teachers who are comfortable addressing other controversial topics such as racism in the contexts of their chosen literature may gloss over sexuality for fear of adversity if they broach it.8 However, this author believes it would be a mistake to leave unexamined the important messages about sexuality in The House on Mango Street, as we will see below.