Boys and Literacy (part 8)

 

Inspiration and help is also available from professionally trained and experienced YA (young adult) librarians. These professionals are intensely aware of the challenges inherent in getting boys to read and write, and their organization Young Adult Library Service Association (YALSA), an appendage of the American Library Association, is an ongoing source of support and information as they face the frontlines of the issue. YALSA promotes an annual Teen Read Week through the public libraries in October that draws adolescent boys and girls into reading for fun. The Teen Read Week website is colorful, informative, interactive, and decidedly non gender-specific. One of the challenges presented for Teen Read Week 2007 is the Wrestlemania Reading Challenge. With support from World Wrestling Entertainment, this program is designed to encourage teens in grades 7 to 12 to not only continue their reading beyond Teen Read Week, but to earn a reward by offering a chance to win prizes donated by WWE. Another feature of the Teen Read Week website is Teen’s Top Ten, a great way for teens to nominate books they love, or to read and evaluate someone else’s picks. Currently the list is up for the top 2007 nominations and students can vote their favorite online. 

 In 2005 Elizabeth Knowles and Martha Smith wrote about practical strategies for improving the literacy of boys. Knowles and Smith addressed the magnitude of research by offering a who’s who list of social and biological constructionists and briefly explained their often polarizing theories. One author mentioned was Jon Scieszka who began a literary initiative to call attention to the fact that boys are not reading. Scieszka set up a splashy website called Guys Read (www.guysread.com), offering information about the literary world of boys including titles of favorite books sent in and voted on by the users. It’s a great site and it is fun to navigate, similar to No Flying No Tights (www.noflyingnotights.com), another creative teen site specifically geared toward promoting graphic novels. Knowles and Smith labeled Michael Gurian’s Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents (2001) as the best in their list. Michael Gurian is cofounder of the Gurian Institute, which trains education professionals in gender difference and brain-based learning. In Boys and Girls Learn Differently he covers everything from the physical brain functions of boys to hands-on approaches to get them reading. Gurian decidedly leans toward a biological constructionist rationale for explaining why boys learn differently. He argues that from preschool to high school, brain differences between the sexes call for different teaching strategies. Gurian claims that, until recently, society has taken the politically correct but scientifically inaccurate view that boys and girls learn best in non gender-specific classrooms. He points to the disparity between boys and girls neurological, chemical, and hormonal functions, and stresses how those differences affect learning. The female brain, Gurian says, has a learning advantage because it is more complex and active and the male brain tends to excel at abstract thinking and spatial relations. This biological predestination argument is limiting because it minimizes the effects of social or behavioral factors. Gurian does offer readers a variety of strategies, which, at the very least, would assist educators and parents in adopting a proactive stance toward addressing boys and literacy.