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.