Fun Home

New unit focused on Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Coming Summer 2025

 

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ELA

Unit 5

12th Grade

Unit Summary


The core text Fun Home fits within the year-long theme On Being Human as Alison Bechdel reflects on her childhood, her complex relationship with her closeted father, her experience of grief, and her journey toward coming out as a lesbian. Set in a small Pennsylvania town, the graphic memoir recounts Bechdel's real-life coming of age as she seeks to understand herself and her family. Through literary allusions and intentional visual storytelling, Bechdel navigates memory, identity, and loss. As students engage with Fun Home, they examine how graphic novelists use visual and textual elements to deepen meaning. The unit also invites students to reflect on the harmful impacts of heteronormativity and the importance of living authentically. 


Before reading Fun Home, students will engage with Ocean Vuong's poem "Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong," which explores a complex childhood, sexual identity, and the cathartic power of writing—key themes in Bechdel's memoir; additionally, they will read and listen to an interview with Bechdel about the power of writing one's story and her choice to use the graphic novel medium to tell it. Later in the unit, students will read Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" to analyze how Bishop uses irony to express grief, offering a lens through which to view Bechdel's tone. Additionally, students will study a nonfiction article on heteronormativity to understand its harmful effects and connect it to the social context of Fun Home. Throughout the unit, students will analyze how Bechdel uses tone, literary allusions, structure, and artistic choices to tell her coming-of-age story. For their final Performance Task, students will craft their own coming-of-age narrative in the form of a comic, poem, or written memoir.

Texts and Materials


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Core Materials

Assessment


These assessments accompany Unit 5 and should be given on the days suggested in the Lesson Map. Additionally, there are formative and creative assessments integrated into the unit to prepare students for the Performance Task.

Socratic Seminar

The Socratic Seminar assesses students on their ability to push themselves and their peers to think critically and participate meaningfully in conversation by collecting and evaluating evidence, actively listening, and responding thoughtfully. Socratic Seminar assessments may occur mid-unit as a way to synthesize the ideas of the text/unit to that point or summative, taking place at the end of a unit.

Performance Task

The Performance Task is the culminating assessment of the unit in which students have the opportunity to show the skills and content they have learned.

Unit Prep


Intellectual Prep

Essential Questions

  • How can storytelling help people process a complex and difficult past?
  • To what extent do our relationships with parents or guardians shape our identities? 
  • What can images communicate that words alone cannot?

Vocabulary

Text-based

artificecavaliercatharticeludeillicitladentenuous

Literary Terms

allusionbleedcaptionfacesframegraphic weightgraphic memoirguttermetafictionpanelspeech balloonthought balloonvillanelle

To see all the vocabulary for Unit 5, view our 12th Grade Vocabulary Glossary.

Notes for Teachers

As you prepare to teach Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, please be aware that the memoir contains content that may be disturbing or triggering for some students. These include:

  • Sexual assault: The narrative discusses instances of inappropriate sexual behavior and grooming involving Bechdel's father and young men.
  • Suicide: Bechdel explores the circumstances surrounding her father's death, which is strongly implied to have been a suicide.
  • Domestic abuse and emotional neglect: Bechdel portrays her father as being neglectful and emotionally abusive toward his children and his wife. 
  • Homophobia and slurs: The memoir references and critiques homophobic attitudes present in Bechdel's upbringing and larger society. At times, she reappropriates slurs or stereotypes, such as terms like "dyke," as part of her identity formation and resistance to societal shame. These moments are meant to be provocative and reflective, not celebratory of hate, but they require clear classroom framing.

Additionally, the text includes visual depictions and descriptions of Alison's exploration of her lesbian identity, including nudity and sexual encounters. These scenes have literary purposes that are important for LGBTQ+ representation, but may still be uncomfortable for some students or raise questions from parents and guardians.

Discretion should be used when preparing students for this material, with attention to supporting them both emotionally and intellectually. It is recommended to provide content warnings before assigning potentially disturbing passages as homework. Due to the controversial nature of the text, it is important to foster dialogue with parents/guardians throughout the unit about any concerns they may have. Consider developing a plan with the school administration in the event of pushback regarding the text. 

Below are some resources to prepare yourself and your students for this text:

Lesson Map


Common Core Standards


Core Standards

L.11-12.5
L.11-12.6
RI.11-12.2
RI.11-12.6
RL.11-12.2
RL.11-12.3
RL.11-12.4
RL.11-12.5
RL.11-12.6
SL.11-12.1.a
SL.11-12.1.b
SL.11-12.1.c
SL.11-12.1.d
SL.11-12.4
W.11-12.1.a
W.11-12.2
W.11-12.5
W.11-12.7
W.11-12.9

Supporting Standards

L.11-12.5
L.11-12.6
RI.11-12.1
RI.11-12.4
RL.11-12.1
RL.11-12.7
SL.11-12.1
SL.11-12.6
W.11-12.3.a
W.11-12.3.b
W.11-12.3.c
W.11-12.3.d
W.11-12.3.e
W.11-12.4
W.11-12.6
W.11-12.9
W.11-12.10

Read Next

Fun Home
Lesson 1
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