I choose this English Journal article because "making connections with boys who struggle in my classroom" was one of my most intractable problems as a teacher - especially as a female teacher who never struggled in school. I think it's difficult for many teachers, however, because it really gets to the heart of how to make someone care about something they are not inclined to care about, don't see a value in, or have had bad experiences in in the past. I know that my most frustrating experiences as a teacher were working with students who, no matter what I tried, still seemed totally impervious to my efforts, totally unwilling to even try to do their best work (or any work at all, sometimes), totally unwilling to read anything. This article also relates to my last post about students not reading assigned texts. I used to have independent reading days every other Friday, and despite my own classroom library, access to the school library, and despite how I modeled book passion of my own in talking about my reading habits, sharing what I was reading, reading with students while they were reading...there were always some middle school boys who would just pretend to read a magazine every week, for forty minutes. Why would they do this? Or, they would fight over the copy of Ripley's Believe It or Not, and The Guinness Book of World Records (boys also really seem to like Calvin and Hobbes)...which was ok for one day, but wasn't taking them any closer to getting their independent reading requirements finished when they would do that every reading day.
Martinez opens his article with an anecdote about a male student, Jayson, who moved to his class who didn't engage at first, or come prepared with a notebook. Martinez gives him a notebook, which seems to provoke an initial change in Jayson's behavior. Martinez then connects his action with what he has learned from some teacher research he had just (conveniently) finished conducting in his classroom, hoping to gain insight to the question "Why do some boys read in my class, while others will not?" Good question!! Martinez implements reading conferences (like Atwell) during independent reading time, which happens daily for 15-20 minutes, and says something intriguing that he doesn't really follow up on: "I began to understand the pressures and problems that often made reading not only a chose but - for some boys - also an impossibility."
Martinez says that the reading conferences were extremely valuable. They helped him to build rapport with his students and bring in reading materials related to their interests (I know that when I got some skateboarding magazines for a few students that would never read but loved skateboarding, it worked (sort of - some reading happened, whereas no reading happened before, and then of course the same kid tried to read the same skateboarding magazine like seven times instead of moving on to something else...)) He also learned the boys often prefer book series that have action and humor, but that there is no one "magic book" that every kid likes. (The findings were pretty slim; the largest section talks about the mechanics of how he did reading conferences - he did a brief check-in with every student where he recorded what they were reading, and then a longer conference with about three students per day.)
Martinez concludes by saying that relationships are the single factor that can make it or break it in a classroom (I agree - students do a lot for you when they know that you truly care about them and think they can succeed). He hints at the meaning of his previous statement about the pressures that boys feel related to reading. He says that there is a "masculine facade" for both him and his male students and seems to indicate that this is at odds with reading (it's not really clear). Maybe being seen as enjoying reading isn't "cool," or maybe some male students just don't connect as easily with a teacher without a systained invitation from that teacher. Regardless, connecting with students about what they are reading, or might like to read, made a major impact in Martinez's class, and I definitely experienced some similar things in my classroom.
Martinez, Louis. (2010). "Making Connections with the Boys Who Struggle in Your Classroom." English Journal. 100:2, p. 121-124.
1 comment:
Years ago, an intern at the PDS at State High had as her inquiry topic the lack of interest in reading in boys and their classroom antics. What was most interesting in our search for resources was that there were a few titles like Wilhelm's "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys" and the pop reading about whether schools are failing boys or have fallen way behind girls (or vice-versa). What was funny was that in England and Australia there were many articles about what they were referring to as "laddish behavior." I know that it can be cool for boys to read, but it goes with a whole stance (I'm a nerd, a thinker, a reader, a bookworm, a college prep candidate). All of these things would appeal to me, but some boys find all of the above undesirable. Also, some students can't hang with these kids and are not in the classes where this stance is commonplace (there is a huge gulf between attitudes at AP versus regular sections in terms of this stance's acceptability). I sometimes believe that the socialization that happens in adolescence can trump even certain boys' honest desire to read. I like the effort you had made to provide your students with readings they would actually read on their own. Too often English teachers pretend to be big readers and to have highbrow tastes, but I find whenever I ask teachers what they are choosing to read themselves, it is not at all highbrow, if they read at all. I think it's important for teachers to continue to read with their students.
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