12 D. Hadley 03-30-2010 04:04 PM ET (US) What this lesson taught me was to look more closely at boys in my classroom and what they are doing (and more to the point) not doing with literacy. When I divided my class into groups to do a read-aloud activity for my lesson, not a single boy volunteered to read. When I thought back about it, I could count on one hand the number of boys who have volunteered to read in my entire four years of teaching. What I would like to do is have an arsenal of activities, strategies and consequences that will facilitate (and on a less nice plane) mandate that actual reading for meaning goes on in my classroom. I think this workshop has started me on the path toward that, but what it has taught me is that I don't know enough or have enough activities to really facilitate meaningful reading activities in my classroom. 11 Fran Younger 03-30-2010 04:04 PM ET (US) I developed a lesson based on 'Sir Circumference and the Dragon of Pi'. The text provided a good structure for a story based discovery approach to understanding the pi ratio. The story is engaging enough, short enough and provides enough drama to maintain the interest of seventh grade boys. The plot contains natural breaks for student discovery activities that mirror Radius' experience in the story. There are several places throughout the story where students can and were encouraged to add sound effects or dramatic interpretation, making the reading of the story more active and fun for them. I believe the lesson would be more effective if it were spread over two days allowing for student collection of a broader variety of real life data to be incorporated in our discovery activity. The first part of the lesson, in this case, would focus on reading the beginning of the story, setting up the situation and data collection in the classroom. I would then encourage students to collect additional data on their own. The second part of the lesson would involve reading the part of the story that describes Radius data collection and problem solving approach, analyzing our data to draw correlation to Radius' discovery and then finishing the story. 10 cam mullally 03-30-2010 03:58 PM ET (US) I used "Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone" to engage reluctant eighth grade male and female readers. Not all in the group were reluctant readers, but there were certainly reluctant readers in the group. We used the story circle format with significant breakout time in crafts (building nets) and drama (simple improv skits). Far and away my biggest challenge is winning authentic buy-in from my students. They are very occupied with the minutia of their interests outside of academia. I designed this lesson to catch their interest. These students are verbal and kinesthetic. Overall, the lesson went over well. They sensed early on that this wouldn't be just another math lesson. They like story circles anyway- it harkens back to the simple times of yesteryear for them. While they struggled with the net construction ("I'm no good at this"), they enjoy making crafts. OK, the nets were very very rough. I could have done a better job guiding them. They need LOTS of help and direction. But nobody stabbed anybody with scissors and we survived. The drama- a rodent squeak and scratch scene and a search for cones scene- was well recieved and fun filled. After calling them back down (always a challenge) we finished the story and reflected. I felt good as we wound down to a flurry of questions to effect of "when are we going to do this again?" 9 Amy G. 03-30-2010 03:58 PM ET (US) Using literature circles with The Great Gatsby worked very well. Although I only used it at the end as a review of the novel, the boys in my class (several EC) were able to complete tasks in the small group setting, working collaboratively, that they may have never been able to on their own. The class discussion was amazing after the literature circle jobs were completed! I plan to use literature cirlces to teach another novel...start to finish. 8 A Crooke 03-30-2010 03:51 PM ET (US) I went through the Web Quest and tried reading a children's book to my math class. My students really enjoyed the book and I related it to our curriculum with a lesson that included small group discussion and large group discussion. I don't know exactly which students are reluctant readers since I teach math but I can identify some students who I "think" are. All my students liked the different pace of relating math to literature. They have since asked for more stories to go with our math. 7 Max Elliot Anderson 10-16-2007 05:02 PM ET (US) It's true, I grew up hating to read. Now I write action-adventures & mysteries especially for boys 8 - 13, who also may not like to read.   NEWSPAPER CAPER, TERROR AT WOLF LAKE, NORTH WOODS POACHERS, MOUNTAIN CABIN MYSTERY, BIG RIG RUSTLERS, SECRET OF ABBOTT'S CAVE & LEGEND OF THE WHITE WOLF, are compared by readers and reviewers to Tom Sawyer, The Hardy Boys, Huck Finn, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Scooby-Doo, Lemony Snicket, and adventure author Jack London.   My blog, Books for Boys, ranks in the top 5 on Yahoo and the top 20 on Google and you can find it at http://booksandboys.blogspot.com There you will also find links to my author's web site and another blog with 50 pages of reviews.   If you have any questions, please let me know.   Thank you,   Max Elliot Anderson Author   http://www.maxbooks.9k.com Now, from an author who hated to read...comes books kids hate to put down. 6 Steven jeffords 09-15-2007 11:01 PM ET (US) Reflection on getting boys to read! I am in college to receive my masters in Education and one of my classes asked us to do this web-quest about getting boys in general to read more. This was an interesting topic. When I become a teacher, I think I’d like to try the Hatchet series by Gary Paulson. I think it would work with boys and girls as well. It is a problem solving story about a young boy whose plane crash lands in the Canadian wilderness and it describes how he survives and figures out each step along the way. Growing up, I was an avid camper and really enjoyed these books even thought I originally bought them for my son. It’s the type of book where you put yourself in his shoes and ask yourself the question, “Now What??” 5 joyce 03-26-2007 09:50 AM ET (US) i've been doing a thesis regarding boys and reading. smith and wilhelm have contributed a lot in explaining the gender gap that exists particularly in boys. 4 Deleted by topic administrator 03-27-2007 02:02 AM 3 Max Elliot Anderson 12-13-2005 09:18 PM ET (US) I grew up as a reluctant reader. Now I write adventures, primarily for boys 8 and up, but girls love them too. NEWSPAPER CAPER, TERROR AT WOLF LAKE, NORTH WOODS POACHERS, MOUNTAIN CABIN MYSTERY, BIG RIG RUSTLERS, SECRET OF ABBOTT'S CAVE, & LEGEND OF THE WHITE WOLF compared by readers and reviewers to Tom Sawyer, The Hardy Boys, Huck Finn, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Scooby-Doo and adventure author Jack London. REVIEWS: http://maxbookreviews.blogspot.com/ http://maxbooks.9k.com 2 Leatha Fields-Carey 05-17-2003 01:21 PM ET (US) I was not surprised when I read on this site that there is a gender gap in literacy. It is something I have always sensed as a student, and later as an English instructor: that there is something about reading that is more inherently “girl”, and that boys respond much more to more “active” pastimes. As I participated in this webquest, I became more aware of anecdotal evidence to support this theory: even in my Honors level English I classes, the students that tend to make the highest grades are girls, the students who tend to have the most insightful comments and the most personal connections to the literature we read in class are girls, and even boys who have reading scores through the roof make comments such as, “I hate to read,” “Reading is boring,” and, my personal favorite, “Why do I need to read this? It has nothing to do with my life.” Our class reads two novels during our blocked semester-long course, To Kill a Mockingbird and Fahrenheit 451. I was discussing Fahrenheit with one male student after we had finished both books and I asked him which novel he preferred. Not surprisingly, he answered that he preferred Fahrenheit. When I asked him why, he replied, “There was more action and more stuff going on. Mockingbird was just…well…thinking.” I chuckled inside to see how the ideas that I had read about on the webquest site had been borne out in my own classroom. The texts I use in my English I class are pretty standard for ninth grade English: Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, and a variety of short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. I also have my Honors students read three independent novels, choosing from a long and varied list of texts that I update each year so that students will have a plethora of material from which to choose. I have found that the texts that are most enjoyed by male students are, not surprisingly, those with more action: The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet (at least the killing parts), and Fahrenheit 451. Some texts that I would like to try in my classroom (at least on the supplementary reading lists) are Angela’s Ashes, Paddy Clarke HaHaHa, and This Boys’ Life. I have tried, this year and in the past, reflective journaling to help students (especially boys) connect to literature in a real, meaningful way. In the past, I have often approached my students’ reading experiences from my own vantage point, which is that people read and write literature because it is a part of the human experience that we all share, and that we as readers instinctively connect reading to ourselves, without having to be told to do so or guided in that regard. I have realized, though, that this doesn’t always happen, and sometimes it takes careful and thoughtful planning on the part of the literature teacher to ensure that students have a guide to help through the processes of making meaning. I would like to try literature circles next year with my students and incorporate some of the great and exciting texts that I read about on the websites, especially GUYSREAD.COM. It’s a strategy that I have been afraid of because it seems so complex, but now that I see the potential value it can have in getting male students more interested in books, I am excited and energized about the practice. The “new thing” I tried with my classes in response to the webquest played on the idea of acting and drama to engage boys. When reading Fahrenheit, I assigned each student a role of a character (the students were particularly interested in Beatty, the arrogant, eloquent fire chief, because he is such a complex and paradoxical character): Montag, the hero of the novel, Beatty, the fire chief, Mildred, Montag’s shallow, empty-minded wife, Clarisse, the young neighbor who inspires Montag, and Faber, the cowardly professor who helps Montag realize his own potential. Using their assigned persona, each student had to prepare a five-minute dramatic monologue as their character in which they had to speak to the class about their interests, beliefs, and views about the society in which they lived. In addition to preparing the monologue, each student had to bring in a “prop” of some kind that related to their character and explain this prop to the class. Some of the students really got into character and did an amazing job, particularly the guys. Not being much of a dramatist myself, I never really realized the power that drama can have for helping students relate to literature, especially male students. This is something that I intend to use in the future, and I can’t think of anything I would have changed about the assignment. It really seemed to “click” with most of the students. 1 Kim Bowen 03-16-2003 12:00 AM ET (US) Welcome to BoysRead. This discussion forum was created to encourage teachers to reflect on boys and reading in their classrooms.	Upgrade to PRO Upload pictures, personalize your board, and more! About these ads