Prewriting for "Boyhood to Manhood"

Boy becomes a man
- rite of passage
-individual responsibility
-realization of the harshness of the world, that some things happen that will knock you out of your dream world.
- “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
-let go of toys, get to work
-first job
-pride in first “romance”
-first big accomplishment to be proud of, perhaps high school graduation
-accountability

main thought/thesis: While there is often a moment when a boy realizes he is no longer just that but a man, it is not that moment that makes the transition from childhood to adulthood; it is that moment that completes it. It is a culmination of a long and unique series of events.

My intro:
Every man has a different story. Every boy passed into manhood in a unique way. If you were to ask me when I realized that I had grown up, I would say February 14th, 2006. Yes, I was only sixteen. I did not think of myself as a “man” that day, but I realized “I am no longer a boy.” On that day, one of my dearest and most perfect friends died from such an ordinary thing as a car wreck. There was no reason or rhyme to her death, there was no human logic explaining why God should claim the best of us that Valentine’s Day. This event was the first that ever caused me to ask that ever-repeated question, “Why?” I would not say I became a man on that day; instead, that was the day I realized that I was in the process of growing up whether I liked it not; I could not live in Neverland anymore.