Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Mostly Outside, Rarely Inside

This chapter covered a lot of material, and gave further insight into the boys' varying psyches.  The researchers initially found a clear disconnect in the boys' interpretation of the research project, in that the boys were not counting all of the extracurricular reading that they were engaging in because they didn't think casual fun reading counted.  In and of itself, this is very telling, and seems to make clear the mental divide the boys carry in themselves when factoring in schoolwork versus "real life".  Competence, control, and challenge was an inter chapter heading which highlighted certain factors which influenced student participation in reading exercises.  One thing that was pointed out was the line between competence and perfectionism.  In general students like to feel a certain level of competence when engaging with an activity, as it gives them a sense of control over the given subject.  Students who tended towards perfectionism were more reluctant to engage in activities that they didn't feel competent enough.

As stated in other chapters, choice is mentioned again as an important aspect of flow.  When students encounter a range of options and are allowed to choose the one that best suits their interest, the more engaged they are likely to become.  Relatedly, one of the students who had attended both public and private schools said that private school felt much less "like a prison" because of the larger degree of freedom and choice given to the students.  This is frustrating because these sorts of practices should be available to any student regardless of familial income.  Teaching practice is teaching practice -- it's makes me wonder if in today's technological age if teachers in any walk will be able to incorporate cutting edge practices more easily, or if state standards will still hamper public school flexibility.

One factor that had a notable impact on students was how close they felt with their teachers.  Teachers who had more personal contact with the students led to more students being engaged with the material.  The personal connection led them to be more willing to try at a subject with less regard for their competence.  In many ways, the what the authors found through their interviews was sometimes worrisome: the disconnect between students and teachers; the way lessons steered more towards pushing through information and less with students expressing their opinions.  Reflecting on my own experience, I remember having ample opportunities to have open discussion in class, and to be able to apply my own reasoning/interpretations to text, so reading these students' experiences makes me wonder about high school at large.

The students also had an aversion to what they called, "busywork" -- work that had to ultimate value or usefulness to it, rather it just functioned to keep students busy.  This is understandable: work for work's sake is unpleasant at any age or station, but it also makes me wonder how accurate their interpretation of busywork is.  Does that mean "work that we find unpleasant/boring"? Because in that case, there could be no pleasing all the students; there would always be some sort of busywork.  However, it could at least inform teachers that students are aware when lazy lesson planning is taking place and general tasks are being given for the sake of it.

Anyway, this chapter covered a wide array of topics, many of them mentioned in prior chapters, but I ultimately found certain aspects to be illuminating.  Still, I'm a little concerned of the overall arc of the book: while there is a lot of discussion, I'm having trouble in sensing what I, as a teacher, am supposed to do with the data.  It's clear that many things don't work and that students do and don't like a variety of things, but how is my practice supposed to be informed?  I guess I wish that the next step was taken by giving teaching practices, or methods to incorporate these findings into regular class usage.  Anyway, there are only two more chapters of the book, hopefully they will incorporate more practical uses for these types of findings.

Chloe's Chapter 6

While in many ways, I felt like this ending chapter was too vague, there were some good take-away points.  I especially liked the reminder to use more visuals when students are making meaning.  They mention that using "music, video, visual arts, and electronic technologies...would build on the interconnections among various forms of literacy" (p. 186) and that it would give the boys a chance to demonstrate their strengths.  I would like to expand this (as do the authors) and say that this would be a great tool for many students, both boys and girls.  Some students do well with the more traditional forms of meaning making, such as comprehension tests, and/or summaries, but many students are left out when the focus is only on the traditional. I would like to keep this in mind for my own teaching.

Their point on making the class centered around a critical question seemed very useful as well.  I agree that this gets students to feel motivated to solve an issue.  I'm still not sure that I agree with the model they used in chapter 3, where the teacher asked the students to make a video surrounding a sports issue, because I feel like that is too narrow, and it leaves out others who may not have as much an interest in sports.  However, there could be a wider question that is pertinent to all students and school centered.  I'm thinking maybe a driving question such as, what makes a good reader? What is literacy? etc.  These are questions related to reading and writing, so they are relevant to all who are in the class and they get them to think metacognitively about themselves. I also like how it allows students a lot of freedom within it.  Students can choose topics as complex or simple as they like (within reason). 

One section that I would like to question is the one where Smith and Wilhelm discuss that shorter texts are intrinsically motivating to students.  I see their point that perhaps there need to be some shorter newspaper articles, or magazine articles included, but I don't think that teachers should then exclude longer texts.  I was thinking that perhaps it is the teacher's role to attempt to build student stamina.  Perhaps this could start though SSR, where students choose texts that are interesting to them, but by the end of the class, I think it would be fine to have a whole-class novel.  Realistically, they will need to learn how to read longer texts for university and college. Many of the boys want to go to university and college, so it is our job to get them ready for it. So, perhaps it is a matter of including more scaffolding and variety into the classroom.

In the end, I feel like this was a lovely read, but I don't think this is only for boys.  The teaching practices that the authors discuss would make any English class more motivating. I was happy to see what techniques they saw teachers use in the classroom, and I can see myself using some of the techniques, such as front loading materials, connecting it to home lives, trying to get to know my students more as individuals, etc.

Chloe's Chapter 5

Phew…this chapter really relieved a lot of the tension I was feeling with the authors’ ambiguous statements, and not much concrete advice for teachers.  I see now that they are not simply recommending that teachers change their texts.  I guess for the last four chapters that’s exactly what I feared.  I feared this because each student has a different interest, and so changing texts seemed like it wouldn’t solve any problems. 

 In this chapter, they mention that teachers need to enhance student interest in texts by front-loading and this is an idea that I can really get behind. This is similar to what I do in the listening and speaking class I teach.  I do this for exactly the same reason.  The listenings are based on random topics that not all students find compelling.  By showing them how these ideas connect to their lives, they are more willing to complete the listening and the post-listening activities.

In many ways this idea of creating connections reminds me of McCormick.  She mentions that teachers should help students relate to texts that come from a different historical time period by showing them how the past and present relate and are not so different.  She talks about it as historically situating the students.  This seems like an idea that Smith and Wilhelm would like, and could use.

One point of note that I want to discuss is about engaging students through proper instruction.  As they are discussing the students who enjoyed “My Sister’s Marriage,” they discuss the notion of how to engage more students. They say that “even more could be engaged with appropriate instruction – instruction that attends to the conditions of flow experience and that provides assistance in ways of reading that Vygotskian educators would endorse” (p.175).  I agree with teaching students through flow and engaging as many students as possible, but I wonder if haing done more instruction for this story would have disengaged more students.  In earlier chapters, Smith and Wilhelm make the point that the boys see the activities done in class as draining.  I wonder, am I contradicting myself? Or, is it okay to sometimes say, “Well, I didn’t engage everyone, but at least some of the students connected with this?” Or could we find a middle ground: teach and foreground some stories, and let students read for enjoyment on other stories?

Chloe's Chapter 4

There were a couple points that this chapter made me think about. I think that I find this chapter difficult because they bring up many components that boys need and want from their classroom environment.  The boys want the teachers to be more interested in them, they want the readings to be more interactive, they want a challenge at the right level, and so forth.  All of these are completely valid and I can see why they would want those, but what I find difficult (from the teacher’s perspective) is how to provide it all for them.  This is reinforced by how little concrete solutions the authors are giving us.  This chapter is better though than the others, because we get some ideas that are valuable.

As a teacher, I would love to get to know all of my students personally and be invested in them.  However, how realistic is that? Each classroom has potentially 20 students in it, and most teachers are teaching more than one class.  In some ways, the design of school does not allow for individuality.  Many of the boys said that "[teachers] want a collective" (p.100).  I don't think it's necessarily that they want a collective, but that one person cannot adhere to the needs of so many students.  Perhaps a compromise is to allow more freedom for the students, I like the idea of having students do an I-Search paper because they can choose a topic that is relevant and important to them.  Book clubs could also be a good way of letting students have more choice.

 I also liked the idea of the SRI as a way to process a story.  On a side note, I’m a little confused about how this would look.  If I understand it correctly, it can be more visual and hands-on.  This seems like it would give the students way of working through the story in a way that’s meaningful to them.

The other point that I definitely agree with is the idea that students should have more interactive activities.  In the example of the two English classes that were working on the play, the second class (where they had to act out portions) seemed much more successful.  I think having an interactive classroom is better anyways (not just for boys). I wonder though if that I the norm, because if they boys are afraid of looking incompetent, or foolish, would they do the interactive activities? I suppose that depends on the type of scaffolding that the teacher provides. What do you think?

Keira Chapter 6

Ugh! The last chapter was, for me, a big let down.

I did like this book, but I'm not sure I like the authors' conclusions. I'm left with quite a few questions.

First of all, I do kind of think that the authors were pretty invested, before the fact, in their "inquiry units"...and I'm not sure those impress me quite as much as the authors seem to think they should. My main reason: I don't love the idea of reading literature with an eye to finding evidence to use in a pro/con type of debate. Early college students have enough trouble doing justice to complexity; this type of training isn't going to make that problem any better. It could make it worse.

Next: In general, the authors say they end up believing that literature should be demoted from its special place in the high school curriculum. But...but...but: How does this conclusion fit with the fairly encouraging results they got from their story-reading protocols?

Also: Do Smith and Wilhelm adequately address the importance of rebellion in adolescent life? I don't think they do. At times, I suspected that "school" played an important role in the boys' lives as something in opposition to which they could define themselves. I don't want that to turn into a cop-out for teachers. But, still...I would have thought that this possibility might be discussed. I definitely remember thinking that the one girl I knew who wanted to be just like her parents was incredibly lame.

I may write more later.

Chapter 6

In this chapter the authors do a good job of summing up major key points in the book. One thing that is painfully obvious after reading this final chapter is that none of their conclusions have anything to do with males exclusively. Perhaps it doesn't matter, but it feels cheapened to me since the whole premise of this book is to focus solely on male student readership. What was the point? Why didn't they just do this study to include females, then, if these are the conclusions they are going to end with? Anyone have similar thoughts?


I was mostly underwhelmed by the conclusions because, for me, it didn't reveal anything "new." Maybe discussing it with you all will shed some light...


I did think that their statements about shifting from the "student-centered model" to a "learning-centered" model was interesting. Usually I hear about the student-centered classroom, while, shifting this to be a learning-centered classroom makes more sense to me (192-193).

Chapter 5

This post will most likely be pretty short because I, again, did not post right after reading and now have to go back through the chapter. (Ugh! Why did I not learn the first time?)


Some take-aways I got from this chapter:


1) Pick texts that invite the social (whatever that may mean--interaction, debate, connections, ect.). This will act as intrinsic motivation (147).


2) Teachers should choose texts that sustain engagement and embody the right amount of challenge. As I have said before...this is so much easier said than done since students will be at varying levels within a class and all have different interests. As we see from the way they read the various stories the researchers ask them to read, different students are engaged with different texts. Some like one story over another--they vary (as to be expected).


I thought is was pretty interesting that most of the boys tended to do story-driven readings when reading the given/assigned stories. This seems like encouraging news. The results are not devastating, most students are at the very least on the right track. Cup half-full view?


I agree with their point on front-loading reading. This is something that we talk a lot about in class and the authors' view on front-loading supports much of what we have already concluded. I think front-loading reading can also be used to achieve the authors' suggestions to "cultivate concern" for the characters in the readings (175).

Keira Chapter 5

This chapter focused on the boys' responses to four short stories. The big surprise, to the researchers, was that the boys not only overwhelmingly engaged with the stories, but did so in a notably story-centered way. They did not generally do merely "efferent" (to use a key word from a previous chapter) readings. They seemed to relate to characters as if they were real people, or at least relevant depictions of real people. They took the characters' moral and emotional experiences seriously. Smith and Wilhelm claim to be particularly surprised to learn that 19-20 of the boys were able to respond in this way even to the story ("My Sister's Marriage") that featured a female narrator and arguably a "girly" situation. For Smith and Wilhelm, the fact that the boys responded in this way has to do with the importance in their lives of the social. They form relationships pretty readily with characters because the social dimension of their lives is very important to them.

I have a few thoughts I want to share. The first is the least connected to the rest...but I have to bring this up. Did you notice that the researchers discovered that Mick could not read the stories? I did note earlier in the book that they described this boy as "functionally illiterate." Was it during this part of the study that they came to this conclusion about Mick? I suppose it's fortunate that we/ they don't encounter functional illiteracy *more* often...but still, I'm so troubled when I encounter it. I hope they offered to find some special help for this boy.

But, well...So my next thought is along these lines: Maybe these boys' English classes are not really as bad as they make them out to be. Maybe they're pretty decent, and that's why the majority of the boys really don't have any trouble doing story-centered reading. Maybe the boys have some sort of adolescent oppositional reason for making English class out to be some kind of enemy, when in fact it may be working for them much better than they will admit to the researchers. What do the rest of you think?

My next thought is: I do genuinely feel impressed by the subtlety with which Smith and Wilhelm have managed so far to handle their topic. It would be so much easier to say something simpler about catering to students' already established interests (You know: teach boys action-packed stories with masculine heroes). What they are actually saying is much more complex. It's more along the lines of: Boys can respond to characters and situations different from their own, but it would be a good idea to put more thought into sincere acknowledgement of their interests and literacies, to deal with fewer topics and texts but in more depth, and to make explicit reading strategies--and, also, make more explicit connections between topics.

But, as they note: The fact remains that the boys did pretty well with stories they read "cold"--with NO front loading, no instruction on strategies, and no explicit connections made to previous instruction. Do Smith and Wilhelm think they just did an awesome job of selecting very good/ relevant stories? What do you others think? I have not read the stories in question, but they sound not terribly unlike material I read in high school.

Keira Chapter 4

I found I was able to take most of the boys' complaints about school and schoolish learning seriously, and ended up feeling that some of the complaints had to do with issues I felt willing and able to address as a teacher. I was a little surprised, but actually pleased, to learn that one of the complaints had to do with what the boys perceived to be insufficient depth. They *wanted* to understand things in more depth, but the felt that school tended to jump too quickly from one topic to the next (107). Relatedly, they felt that *connections* between topics were underdeveloped. "Robert," a tenth grader, talks about the problem this way:

...after we finish reading, we just go on to something else. We go on to something else to do. Like, she'll give us some different work. After we read, we just close the book and do different work. (107)

The superficiality and discontinuity was related to the boys' feeling that school didn't give them a feeling of competence and control. According to Smith and Wilhelm,

These boys argued that school leaps from topic to topic, and that textbooks in particular do not provide the basis for the deep understanding that was important to a sense of competence and control." (107) 

I have a few thoughts here. First of all, it really does help me to see this picture of the problem from the angle that Smith and Wilhelm are taking because I think (perhaps like many people my age) I might be inclined to think that young boys (and to some extent girls) currently have such fragmented attention (related to media overload, internet surfing, etc.) that they won't value depth and continuity. It's actually extremely encouraging to think that maybe they in fact *do* value these things, and I'm thoroughly willing to do what I can to make connections explicit and to allow for as much depth of inquiry as possible.

One possibility I will raise, however, is that people with very fragmented attention may fail to recognize connections that teachers do earnestly attempt to develop. Without actually observing the boys' teachers, I'm reluctant to condemn their work. Still, it's extremely valuable, in my opinion, to note that the boys did seek depth of knowledge and connection between topics. Helping classes work better for them would surely involve good strategies for checking in with them about whether they were able to follow/ pick up on/ make connections. A bit of repetition and a lot of explicitness in this connection would probably (though not definitely) pay off.  

It's good for me to see a possible connection between the lack of a feeling of competence and control and a lack of depth and continuity. I had been a bit worried that the key to giving the boys a feeling of competence and control might be to dumb down and make generally more shallow the topics of study. The very possibility of that got my back up, and I felt unwilling to cater to the boys if that's what was going to be involved. I'm glad to see that there is another, much more palatable, way of understanding (and potentially solving) the problem.

Another problem with school on which the boys tended to agree was that the teachers, they felt, didn't (as Rev put it) "know you, care about you, recognize you" (99). I am a little surprised at the possibility that teachers' connections to their students might be as weak as the boys suggest. I was frankly STUNNED to read of Marcel's failure in Spanish. Marcel was a native Spanish speaker. *How* could his teacher fail to address this issue very directly? I know we don't always know which of our students actually speak Spanish at home, but if I thought there was any possibility that that might be the case, I would ASK. "Do you speak Spanish outside class? Where? How well? With whom? Since when?" If the answer is "with all my family and since BIRTH" I would for SURE find some way of individualizing the challenge of the class. I know it's possible that I'm underestimating the problems that this particular teacher may be dealing with, but: Holy Cow! That one example did sure seem to me to suggest that some teachers didn't really know who their students were.

For my own part, I'll admit to having hated high school by the end. But I can't say that my teachers didn't know me or bother to make any connection. (It's kind of funny to realize this, but I guess I'm actually facebook friends with my grade 12 English teacher.) There was, of course, some variability. Teachers of subjects in which I made the most effort took the most interest (there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg question there), but I even had at least one gym teacher who bothered to ask which sports I *did* like, and she went out of her way to include some activities I favored, and really praised me on the rare occasion that I did excel athletically. I think I maybe even got an "A" in my last semester of gym. (I was generally a C+ student in that subject). I guess I'd concede, though, that my school was relatively easy on the teachers. It wasn't riddled with social problems.

Chapter 4

On page 95 the authors note that one of the boys, Zach, "refused to read on vacation." As Chloe and I talked about in our meeting last night, so do I. I do not think that this is necessarily a bad thing, or something that should be indicative of literacy level or skill. I just wanted to point that out--I think that reading can be pleasurable, but whether or not it is done for that reason isn't necessarily a reflection of whether or not it is done and done well in school when it is required. In reality, many of these boys are going to get through school because they need to/have to. They are going to do the reading because the reading is assigned. I'm alright with that as long as they are actually doing it. I would prefer if the authors focus on how to get them to do assigned reading (which they do in the rest of the chapter) than whether or not these boys are going to be life-long novel readers, because, frankly, I don't care all that much. Great if they are. If they aren't, that's fine too.


I think that what we have been talking about in class has a lot to do with this chapter. The boys clearly were not willing to take on a task that they felt completely incompetent in. In my last post I griped about the difficulties of being able to meet each and every student at their correct level of challenge. Perhaps doing some metacognitive work on difficulty and creating a dialogue about competence and reading difficulty would have helped these boys to feel competent enough to take on reading tasks.


I was surprised that the authors found that so many schools did not necessarily encourage students to express their opinions, or, give them ample opportunity to do so. It's strange to me because I feel like this is a given. I imagine that having the weight of responsibility to teach a certain curriculum in these schools must be a part of that.


A lot was covered in this chapter and I'm obviously not going to be able to address all of it, but one point I did want to address was this discussion about the boys' "notions of reality" (124). It was important for the boys to engage in reading and learning that applied to their own lives or their immediate surroundings. The authors state, "Though the boys constructed their notions of reality differently, they all privileged what they considered to be the real and discounted what was not." My question is: How can we use this information and practically apply it in the classroom if our students' notion of reality varies so much? Are book clubs and giving students some choice the solution to this? Or do we need to do more? If so, then what are we to do?


Something I am still confused about from this chapter is SRIs. I am still confused about what this process would entail. Is anyone able to clarify? So the students are supposed to cut out pictures from magazines to go along with the story they are reading, but, I am completely lost on what they are actually supposed to be doing with these cut-outs. And how would we use this activity? Would this be in-class or a project that would be turned in? I am just having a really hard time picturing how this entire activity would be done or how it would be laid out.

Chapters 2 & 3

Chapters 2 & 3

Chapter 2, Going with the Flow, gives us a window into the motivations and desires of guys in their natural habitat.  The “flow” state referred to is that state in which self-consciousness is abandoned, and mental concentration becomes single-pointed.  This chapter helps us look at the circumstances in which boys experience this state, and why this state does not always occur within a reading context.  

Among other things, boys have a sensitivity to reading that seems to be highly emotionally bound: they want to feel an element of control, but still feel some challenge.  If the reading is too simple, they will become bored.  If it’s too difficult, those in this study indicated feelings of disengagement.  Likewise, how they reach the flow state within their own hobbies is by having the freedom to choose their actions.  Even in reading activities, if they are choosing it of their own free will, they are more likely to enjoy the reading act.  However, when the reading is assigned, the sense of control is removed, and the reading becomes work.

Additionally, when observing the subject’s preferred hobbies, we can see how feedback directly influences the flow experience, and how clear immediate feedback rarely occurs within school assignments (novels), but does occur more so in informational readings.  This once again reaffirms some of the stereotypes of male readers.  What is further highlighted is the engagement around efferent reading.  

For teachers this can be tricky, as the researchers point out that the flow state achieved in a particular context cannot necessarily be mined by teachers for use in another context.  Metaphors might help students understand the connection, but it’s unlikely that they will feel the connection, and therefore not be given to it.  So how does a teacher factor in all of these various factors?  Do they base assignments around Ss likes and dislikes?  Analyze student genre preference for curriculum creation?  While it is not so clear cut, and no common text could ever be effective for a classroom of different students, understanding the conditions in which students enter into a freer state of mind can help shape the approaches taken by teachers when creating and administering assignments.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 provided a lot of food for thought.  Titled, Do the Right Thing; The Instrumental Value of School and Reading, the researchers brought to light student tension in response to the view of reading versus the application of it.  What struck me is that most of the interviewees had internalized a view of reading as positive and “something you should do,” but they just didn’t want to do it.  Their “profound belief in the importance of school” seems at odds with the preface for this study, even.

Judging from what we’ve studied in class, it would seem possible to harness this type of attitude similar to how the teacher who made Death of a Salesman relate to sports (in a sport-oriented high school).  Still, is there a magic bullet in all cases to make an assignment personally viable?  Obviously not, and I feel like this exemplified teacher may be an exception to the rule (but who am I to say, having no experience with high school classes?).  

Anyway, contrasting with students’ proclaimed respect for other case studies who were well read was an opposing view that just reading wasn’t enough: that creating social bonds and having real world experience was equally or more important.  Is there any way to cross these views in a classroom and integrate them into a reading assignment?  Where do street smarts meet academia?  

I guess I’m still left with just as many questions as when I started this book, although I am intrigued by the candor of the researchers and test subjects.  When we get into the pedagogical side of things, I’ll be curious how the approach will differ from current teaching trends, or if it will reinforce modern practice (as the book is from 2002).   

Chapter 2 and 3

Quickly, on chapter 2, since I already commented on Chloe's post on chapter 2 and expressed my opinions on it, I did actually like the discussion of "flow." I get it--but I keep thinking about how difficult it would be to accurately assess the right level of challenge for each individual students, and students are not necessarily able to pin point that either.

Now, chapter 3, I actually liked this chapter a lot more than chapter 3. It brought up a lot of interesting points and I think that I learned a lot from this chapter--it made me think.

It doesn't surprise me that when it comes to school and reading, the students they interview value it for what it can bring in the future versus the immediate. I can recall many times in my life, and I'm sure others have also probably had this experience, where teachers, parents and adults of the like emphasize that you "need to do good in school for your future." It's drilled into our brains from the time we are young that school and academic success is intrinsically linked to future success.

The discussion on Dewey is somewhat problematic for me. They quote Dewey as saying, "Healthy work, done for present reasons and as a factor in living, is largely unconscious" (67). I understand why Dewey is saying that a focus on the future undermines the very purpose of schooling--but I do not think that the purpose of schooling is the same for every student, for every human, and it doesn't need to be. Let's face it, some students have purposes and dreams and drives that have nothing to do with school, and for them, school really is a means to an end. Is this a good thing? This is definitely not ideal. Regardless, I do not think that it is helpful as a teacher to judge or value purpose, dreams or to aspirations. I think that if teaching in a way that promotes health work done for present reasons is possible, then it should be done and it will most likely benefit all students--no matter what their aspirations are or how they view school and reading. This is on a day-to-day basis though. Not all teachers in all classes will be teaching as such which means that in the big picture, even if you achieve this kind of teaching, overall, students still may still place value on their schooling as being a means to an end. If students have goals that are more fitted for vocational school, then school really is more or less a means to an end for them. If we are able to teach "healthy work done for present reasons" will they learn something valuable along the way? Yes--most definitely.

I think that what I am saying is that school does have an instrumental value. We should not kid ourselves about that and we can't deny it. It is not the end of the world that students recognize this. As long as we are able to teach in the way set out in this chapter it shouldn't matter, because at least while they are in our classrooms they will be focused on the task at hand.

Chloe Chapter 3

So, as far as this chapter goes, I'm still having some tension with it, but I liked this one a bit more.

Like the authors, I appreciated that the boys see reading a good tool for the future and that it will get them to their goals.  I think it is an even better sign that they made up reasons for the fake characters to stay in school and get educations. I guess my struggle comes with the fact that the authors want the boys to see reading as something immediately rewarding.  Ideally, I agree that the boys should see reading as an immediately pleasurable task, but it can be hard for teachers to change a student's stance so immediately.  Couldn't it be okay for teachers to demonstrate for students how reading can help them with their future goals of becoming a rapper, or artist, or whatever? After we get them to buy into this fact, then I understand that it is important to get them to see that reading can be immediately rewarding, but I just think that it's so common that we forget to meet students where they are.

Another tension I feel here is the fact that in the first chapter, the authors state that "boys are more inclined to read informational texts" (p.11).  If this is the case, wouldn't that attribute for the fact that boys see reading and school as a means to an end? Perhaps this is simply the way that they look at the world.  They must wonder how it can benefit them.  This makes sense if they are concerned with looking good in front of their peers.

One point that I liked was the way the boys made a differentiation between what can be learned in books versus what can be learned in a social context.  This is a barrier that I really hadn't considered before, but I can see how that would influence the way the boys act in the classroom.  I wonder why they think this is particularly a male phenomenon? In many ways, I think I felt that way up until I started my MA program.  I mean, I always liked learning, but I didn't always feel that the knowledge would help me much in the real world (except to get a job).  Once I started my MA, I had a new purpose for reading.  I saw this connection between academia and my future "real-world" experiences.  Perhaps, getting them to see how the readings connect to their experiences would help them.

On a final note, I was SO SO happy that they finally gave us an example of a teacher who tried to engage the boys in his class more.  Like Keira, I was a little disappointed in how small the changes were, but this reflects a real classroom in my opinion.  Teachers will not be able to change a whole curriculum to engage half the class, so the changes that are made will have to be adjustments, rather than whole-curriculum changes.  I wondered if this would be an applicable project in a university classroom because at the end, the students do a video assignment, but I feel like university teachers would have more constraints on the final projects, and that they would most likely have to relate to reading.

Keira Chapter 3

Although I was feeling pretty skeptical of Smith and Wilhelm's project at the end of Chapter 2, I revived my receptivity considerably during Chapter 3. Unfortunately, Chevys did lose me again at the end of this Chapter (I'll explain why later in this entry). But most of Chapter 3 was compelling to me.

In Chapter 3 Smith and Wilhelm bring together Csikszentmihalyi (the flow guy) and Dewey (Democracy and Education). (They do not explicitly return to the distinction between the aesthetic and efferent stance that played such a crucial role in Chapter 2, but I could see the continued relevance of that distinction, and I predict that it will be explicitly re-invoked in Chapter 4.) I did not see this marriage (so to speak) coming at all, and I did actually experience what felt like a revelation. ALL the boys in the study understood education as preparation rather than as a process of growth (the distinction between preparation and process of growth comes from Dewey); most went so far as to construe "school and reading" as "an obstacle to overcome to get where you want to go" (67). "Children proverbially live in the present: that is not only a fact not to be evaded, but it is an excellence," writes Dewey (qtd. in Smith and Wilhelm 66). It's an excellence compatible with Csikszentmihali's flow experiences--well, AND with the aesthetic stance as described by Rosenblatt and others. And yet, the boys did not experience "healthy work" as Dewey understands it in English class; relatedly, they did not experience "flow." They did not successfully occupy an aesthetic stance when reading for class. What was a kind of breath taking for me was the extent to which they didn't even think of this healthy work/ flow/ aesthetic reading as a POSSIBILITY in connection with "schoolish" reading.

They didn't even know it when they saw it. 

What I mean by this last statement is that, when the boys in the study read a profile of a boy who is an enthusiastic reader, they are ALL completely blind to the description of his experience. Here are the second, third, and fourth sentences of the profile: "Occasionally, Andre feels overwhelmed by family pressures. However, reading puts his mind at ease. When Andre reads a book, his mind is completely absorbed by the characters" (60). Smith and Wilhelm tell us that they expected their boys to call Andre a "faggot" or "sissy" and just generally reject him as not adequately masculine; other studies in this field have concluded that the problem with boys and English class has to do with their perception of school reading as "feminine" (71). But, interestingly, only one of the boys in the Chevys study had anything like that type of reaction to Andre. The other boys generally admired Andre and focused on the future success they imagined for him as a teacher or librarian!!!!! Again: they did not acknowledge Andre's absorption in his reading. They focused on his FUTURE.

Clearly, these boys don't know the excellent children's librarian at my local branch of the SF Public Library who can never get more than 20 hours of work there per week. Or all my friends with PhDs in English earning $3000 per course (with no benefits or job security). They definitely don't know that 75% of teachers in US higher education are stuck in PART-TIME jobs. They clearly don't know me.

If we're talking about money here and future security, the boys could be better off fixing them some chevys.

The boys completely, utterly, totally misconstrue what is--or should be--on offer in English class. Smith and Wilhelm blame the teachers. I might at least acknowledge that it's the culture at large that's at the root of the problem, but I do agree with the authors of Chevys that English teachers in secondary school can and should do better.

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Now for what I didn't like about Chapter 3. I was underwhelmed by the description of the themed unit that Wilhelm taught to his class. The theme was "What are the costs and benefits of the American emphasis on sports?" Wilhelm bemoaned the fact that he somehow (due to the demands of curriculum) work in Death of a Salesman, but he did stick the play into his unit--but way too apologetically, in my view. I was reminded of my Grade 11 teacher who was obliged to teach The Two Solitudes (note: I grew up in Canada. Americans will not have heard of this book, but it's a Canadian Classic). Anyway, the teacher in question marched angrily into class, slammed down a great big box of books and declared: "OK, kids! This is going to be a TRIP TO THE DENTIST!"

Understandably, I kind of put off reading the book. But, when I did get around to it, I found it very moving.

Keira Chapter 2

Ok, so...This chapter did actually teach me a new word--and I think it's going to turn out to be a key word for this book. The word is:

efferent

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "efferent" can be an adjective or a noun. The adjective means

Conveying outwards, discharging.

And the noun:

That which carries outwards.

Interestingly (well, it's interesting to *me*), even the full online unabridged OED offers no examples of the word as it's used in literacy studies, so I had to think the metaphor implicit in Smith and Wilhelm's usage through for myself. Here's the first instance of their use of this word in Chevys:

The boys we cite here could be described as taking an efferent [emphasis added] stance (Rosenblatt, 1978) in their reading. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that they choose texts that reward an efferent reading. Csikszentmihalyi (1990a) provides a lens through which to understand that choice. Efferent reading by its nature provides an opportunity for clear and immediate feedback that aesthetic [emphasis added] does not. If you're looking for information and you find it, you know that your reading is successful: You can beat the game, fix the electrical problem, or hit the ball straighter. Aesthetic reading, the kind that most teachers (us included) [emphasis added] want to cultivate, is a much more nebulous thing. The focus in aesthetic reading is not what can be learned but what is experienced. As such it is consonant with the final characteristics of flow experience that we'll discuss in this chapter, a focus on the immediate. But is at odds with the way most of the boys in our study spoke about reading. (At the end of Chapter 4 we will explore some ways of cultivating more competent and informed aesthetic reading) (40).

Efferent reading takes readers outward, toward something he/ she can DO with what they've gleaned. (Fix chevys, maybe?) The relevant contrast is with aesthetic reading...The root of the word "aesthetic" has to do with sense perception (think "anesthetic," which is obviously about numbing the senses), though the meaning shifted toward having to do specifically with beauty or a response to beauty--which obviously can be interpreted in a range/ variety of ways. But, in any case, at its best aesthetic experience is an intense inward experience. I do eagerly anticipate Smith and Wilhelm's move (they say it's coming in Chapter 4!) toward what I guess will be making some kind of connection between the "flow" experiences the boys experience in other domains in their lives to the aesthetic experiences they *might* have via literature, but in general do not.

This is an interesting and worthy project....BUT...like Chloe (I think) I'm a little frustrated or maybe impatient or skeptical at this point in the book. Is the payoff really coming?

One of the elements of Chapter 2 that triggered my skepticism (SEVERELY triggered it) is the part about video games--and it's kind of the culmination of the chapter so it LEFT me with a bad feeling (hence my fairly long delay between my first reading of the chapter and this posting). Here's an annoying passage: "The attraction of video games resides at least in part on the fact that they provide players with a careful sequence of experience. But a similar sort of careful sequencing characterizes too few classrooms" (51). WHAT?! Seriously?

I'm certainly in agreement that teachers should be reflective about sequencing, and, sure, it's got to be possible to structure a syllabus in such a way that some/ most students should be able to make some connections and build skills gradually. But there is no way that a human teacher can achieve for 30 (give or take) different students per class the kind of individualized sequencing that a computer can do with a video game. We are not machines, neither are the students, and the skills we're trying to foster are complex. The one time I think I experienced anything in the domain of English education that was anything like a video game was the time I took the verbal GRE test via computer. The computer was able to adjust with exquisite rapidity to my vocabulary level. But that's just a very specific kind of test! I don't think anybody could teach me about a complex book (or poem) in anything like that kind of way. Sure, you can individualize your syllabus by building in elements of choice, but no human being who is teaching 30 other human beings (PER CLASS) can do the kind of minutely, immediately responsive sequencing of which a computer (in connection with SOME tasks) is capable. 

Discussion Items

Hello everyone!

I've finished reading Chapter 2, and I will do my best to post an entry on that chapter sometime in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, I've had a couple of ideas for discussion items. These are just topics we may (or may not) discuss either here or during our meeting this coming Wednesday. I wanted to do something to get the ball rolling again.

1) What do you think of the image on the book's cover? Is it well chosen? Can we analyze it? I'm sure the authors (and/ or designers, if any were involved) had many pictures of boys to choose from. So why did they pick *this* boy? Why *this* image?

I was prompted to ask this question by my father (who happens, annoyingly enough, to be a professor of educational psychology)...so I probably don't really deserve credit for raising this. He was visiting and picked up the book. He pointed to the picture and said "This is GREAT! LOOK at this guy!" and started analyzing it.

2) In the article titled "On Not Being Only One Thing: Book Clubs in the Writing Classroom" (we read this for class a few weeks ago), Rona Kaufman and Lee Torda suggest that book clubs will work best if the books under discussion are "substantial, fictional texts" (273). They quote Salvatori (whose piece just happens to have been assigned to us for this week!):

...students' descriptions of difficulties almost inevitably identify a crucial feature of the text they     are reading and contain in nuce the interpretative move necessary to handle them. They might say for example that they had a 'difficulty' with a text because it presented different and irreconcilable positions on an issue--their 'difficulty' being in fact an accurate assessment of that text's argument. (qtd. Kaufman and Torda 273)

So, what do you think? Does Reading Don't Fix No Chevy's present enough difficulty? And/ or, if we want to consider this issue more broadly, do you agree with Kaufman and Torda that "substantial, fictional texts" might be most/ more generative of book-club discussion?

Chloe Chapter 2

I feel extremely frustrated with this chapter.  In my mind, many of these concepts are not unique to boys alone.  The first idea that the authors discuss is “flow.”  In it, the authors mention that these are comprised of four different ideas: “a sense of control and competence, a challenge that requires an appropriate level of skill, clear goals and feedback, and a focus on immediate experience” (28 – 30).  Should these paramount in all classes.  Isn’t this sense of control and a challenge that is the right level what we call scaffolding? I agree that boys want to escape into areas that interest, but isn’t that what everyone likes to do? I know that I would prefer to stay with my hobby of hiking (where I feel competent and powerful) rather than learn how to run a marathon (where I think I would fail). It’s not to say that I don’t think we should do these things; it’s just that I don’t think they are new and I don’t think they are particularly unique to boys.

 

Out of all of the ideas in the chapter, I appreciated the idea of giving clear and immediate feedback.  This is something that I might have overlooked if not for this chapter.  I understand that reading a longer novel or article can be frustrating since it takes so long to see the fruits of your labor.  I like the idea of asking students to read for a specific purpose, such as finding instructions of some sort, or a shorter piece that is more immediate.  I think this would be good for everyone in the class.  It reminds me of the ideas of including both intensive readings and extensive readings.

The other reason that I felt so frustrated is that they don’t outline how they want these concepts to interact in a lesson.  I get the feeling that this chapter was the rationale of the lesson plan and that we won’t find out much more until Chapter 4.  They alluded to Chapter 4 several times, and I have to say that I am disappointed to have to wait so long to see what an actual lesson or unit consists of.  Overall, I just felt like the ideas in this chapter were not particularly new, but they are good teaching practices in general.

Chloe Chapter 1

So, I went into this novel hoping that it might illuminate some of the reasons that boys have trouble in classes.  I was happy about the way they frame the discussion at the beginning of the chapter: it doesn't have to be either boys succeeding or girls succeeding.  Smith and Wilhelm state, "To take one instance, the issue of girls' relatively low achievement in math and science has received much well-deserved attention, and as a result demonstrable improvement has been achieved in these areas" (1).  I think this shows that just as girls are starting to improve in math and science, teachers should help boys achieve higher standards in reading. This doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

They also made a strong argument for the sociocultural explanations of why boys are not doing so well.  I had never considered that many of the people we see reading in movies, TV, or in magazines are women.  On the other hand, Smith and Wilhelm report that "while most girls arrive at school with a secure sense of gender, boys do not.  As a result, boys are more susceptible to peer pressure..." (12).  I wonder how they arrived at that result.  Is it all boys who are insecure? How do they measure insecurity?

I appreciated the summary of research they provide that illuminate the differences between boys and girls in reading.  I thought the most salient ideas that could be implemented into the classroom are the differences in choice.  I had never considered that my choices in topics might influence their interest. It could be easy to add some readings about hobbies, or read magazine articles.  In conjunction with this, I thought that asking students to fill in a personality profile, might help the teacher with their choices in readings.  Realistically, I understand that the teacher may have to have already chosen the readings.  Another way to balance these might be to have students do an independent reading project where they choose what they read about and write something up about it at the end.

The last point that I wanted to discuss was the choice in students that Smith and Wilhelm will be using as examples.  Three out of the four boys are European-American and one is Puerto Rican.  I don't feel as if this is representative of a typical classroom. I have learned that African American males have the toughest time in school, and I think it would have been valuable to include one African American male to talk about.  Many schools are diverse and I think that should have been represented in the students they chose.

Chapter 1

"Reading Don't Fix No Chevys"'s first chapter is very intriguing.  A lot of the issues and perspectives it raises on the reading lives of young men are very interesting, especially at this time in history.  Personally, I really enjoyed learning about the different views of given researchers (as well as seeing how political bias/perspective shapes authorial voice and conclusions).

One point I would like to see more of (and may later on in the book) are more cross-cultural and historical analysis of males and reading.  I was a little surprised at how widespread the negative attitude of reading persists, but then I have to reflect on my own conditioning and environmental influences which might have insulated me from some of these attitudes.

What is the historically present trend in literacy? Are these attitudes currently changing for the better or worse overall?

Many historical accounts I've read seem to have a certain assumed respect for the literate, but then again, perhaps historians, who are obviously quite literate themselves, tend to highlight those attributes consciously or unconsciously.  So when reading this book, and seeing views, whether accounting for similar trends across 14 different countries, but also seeing negative views occurring in England towards a literate lower class, I get the notion that literacy might be like fashion that fluctuates depending on the idealized role of men within a society.

Not to discount the researchers who claim biology doesn't play a part: I've read similar views referring to the higher rates of color blindness in men relating back to the biological imperative to hunt (monochromatic vision providing and easier system for sensing the movement of animals hidden within foliage), and correlated with the notion of men being more likely to to excel over women at "hunting" and retrieving information.

Anyway, looking forward to more!

Keira's preconceptions/ predictions/ expectations + Chapter 1

In this post I'm going to respond to Paul Morris's question about our preconceptions, predictions, and expectations of our book and of the book-club process. I will then go on to deal briefly with some specific aspects of Chapter 1 of Reading Don't Fix No Chevys.

My first thought, when I was unexpectedly re-assigned to the Chevys book club when my original (Just Girls) club dissolved, was: "I don't know anybody like that. I've never known anyone who would say anything along the lines of: 'Reading don't fix no chevys.'" I did, nonetheless, feel very open to learning about something very much outside of my personal experience. I thought: "Well, if I'm going to teach community college, I'm going to be expanding my horizons. I'm ready to get excited about the extent to which this book might help me."

I guess I'm going to have to share quite a bit about myself and my background, or none of this discussion of my preconceptions is going to make sense. Please excuse me if I over-share; I'll do my best to exercise good judgment.

So, anyway, one detail I can share about my teaching experience is that so far I've taught at three Canadian universities. I've never taught in the US. Two out of the three schools were in Montreal, and I'd say that, even many of the less successful students there were fairly artsy city boys. I don't think they had much interest in fixing cars. The young men in rural northeast Nova Scotia, where I taught full time for a year, were different, probably--though I don't think I could tell you what, if anything, they liked to read. I'm just now remembering a conversation I had with one of them about what his motivations were for wanting to become a pharmacist. He said that, if he could become a pharmacist, he wouldn't have to leave Nova Scotia. He could stay and contribute to his community. That was what meant the most to him. Because I'm such an uprooted person myself, I was quite affected by what he had to say. But, in any case, this is a bit of a tangent. In general, it's the case that I didn't find very much about my Nova Scotian students' reading habits. I didn't find out about this guy's reading habits. What I learned was that he wanted a good grade in my class so that he could get into pharmacy school and ultimately stay in Nova Scotia.

When I began to read the back cover and Forward to Reading Don't Fix No Chevys I did start to ask myself: Why *haven't* I ever wondered about my students' reading habits and preferences? It's not a bad question, I thought. Ok, so: Even if I haven't had classrooms full of budding mechanics, this book still addresses questions that I might have done well to consider in the past--and I and my future students could benefit if I start considering these questions now. I felt happy about the opportunity to do some good learning.

I did, I'll admit, continue to kind of list for myself the ways and reasons for which I've been insulated from the Reading-don't-fix-no-chevys boys. For one thing, I have daughters. I don't have a son, and I'm not expecting to have any more children. I am, it's true, married to a man, but he's a sensitive sort--and, I gather, he stood out when he was in school back in western Pennsylvania. He was one of only a couple of boys who never went deer hunting. He and one other boy would actually go to school on the first day of hunting season. All the other boys were absent. He and this other boy (who was the son of the district superintendent of education, I believe) took optional literature classes. They were receptive to the reading material offered as part of the curriculum--and actually asked for more.

But then...thinking about my husband's past makes me think about his family. I remember his grandfather. He had worked almost his whole working life in a steel mill. He was ostensibly pleased to see us get married, but, truly: when I spoke, this man always claimed not to understand me. He would sometimes say it was my accent (!!!??) that was the problem. But, for whatever combination of reasons, I could never communicate with this man. It was really striking and unsettling. I would talk...and he would either ignore me or turn to someone else and say "I didn't understand a word she just said." I could see that he could hear other people just fine, or at least BETTER, so I didn't think it was just a problem with his hearing. I don't have space or time here to say everything I know about him...but, in any case, I will say that being assigned to this book club did make me think about him. Are there young men 70 years younger than this guy who would be equally incapable of hearing me? Would I be *this* incapable of reaching them or making effective connections to what matters to them?

It's probably not true, after all, that I haven't known Reading-Don't-Fix-No-Chevys types.

Well, and when I perused the inside cover of the book (where there's a list and a bare-bones description of the boys who participated in the study), I noticed something I hadn't expected. The boys were not all of low socio-economic status, and they were not all performing poorly in school. Oh. The title alone had given me a wrong impression. Ok, so: this book is actually about a *variety* of boys' attitudes to their schools' English curricula.

I've never taught high school boys, but what about the boys from my own high school? Ugh. Bad memories. Suddenly, something I hadn't thought about at all in a long, long time came back to mind.
This was a very unpleasant episode when the mainstream boys in my class (by the way, I was in a "learning community") turned against me for dating the nerdiest boy in the class. NOBODY is supposed to date the nerdiest boy in the class. If *this* boy gets a girl, the social order is severely disturbed. Anyway, *I* was the one who was going to pay the price for this disruption. And the mainstream boys--who were, if memory serves, mainly interested in basketball and rap (and, no, not one single one of them was African American, so don't go running with that stereotype)--really harassed me very openly in English class. The episode culminated with a (male) English teacher cornering one of the boys in a cloak room and (I think) swearing at him and possibly threatening him in some way. Ugh. I really hadn't remembered that incident in a long, long time. We're talking about something that happened over 20 years ago.

But, yeah, ok: Deep down, I do remember those basketball boys. I don't like them. I admit it. It's probably good that I realize this, because young men I teach now or in the future shouldn't be unconsciously lumped in with those guys from my high school and just written off. That wouldn't do anyone any good.

My high school was quite upper-middle class, and these boys were all academically successful. But, now that I think about it: They DID hate fiction. They WERE resistant to the English curriculum. By grade 12, the teachers were pretty openly frustrated with them--even though I think we all knew they were going to do well by the world's standards.

And that whole successful by the world's standards thing touches on a very important point made in the early pages of Reading Don't Fix No Chevys: Many people might argue that boys don't need any extra help or consideration in educational settings; they still end up with a myriad of real-world advantages over girls. But, as I started actually to read our book, I was very pleased to see the authors clarify their stance on this issue. It's not that they believe that boys need defending from the effects of feminism on the curriculum or any such thing. It's not that they are worried that boys--at least the ones with socio-economic advantages, etc.--won't get jobs and make money. They are more deeply concerned with the extent to which boys' "development...through language" (16) might remain stunted, the extent to which they might fail to "embrace the life of the mind, the emotions, and the various forms of literate creativity" (16). Oh, right: those things. I do care about those things. So did my high school teachers. In fact, I'm pretty sure the boys' underdevelopment in these areas was what frustrated the teachers so much.

It's disturbing to me to realize it, but I think I perceived my English teacher to have picked me over the boys. And I don't just mean that he sided with my on a particular issue, or that he felt the boys' *behavior* in this instance should be corrected. It went way beyond that. I think I felt that "English" was sort of a domain in which I could turn my back on boys like that in favor of another kind of person and other values. That's ok for the teen-aged me. But, as I teacher, I need to re-orient myself to the problem in a very significant way. It's actually extremely valuable to me that I remembered that icky episode, because now I have the chance to be *conscious* of possible prejudices that might get in the way of my ability to teach many young men effectively.

I see now that Reading Don't Fix No Chevys really addresses something that does matter a lot to me in my teaching life. This subject matter has already been a lot more relevant to me than I might have guessed, and it will continue to be relevant.

As for the book-club process...I think that, until just a few hours ago, I felt relatively neutral about it. I now see that it's already, even at this early stage, allowed me to uncover a crucial formative experience that really had the potential to contaminate my teaching. I did not expect to get so personal--or so uncomfortable--in my reflections on a book that I initially perceived as having not that much to do with me, but I can see already that the book club process has the potential to foster this kind of personal reflection.

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What else do I want to say about Chapter 1 specifically? Well, first of all, I do think it's good that both the authors of this study and the (separate) author of the Forward to the book address right off the bat the skepticism some female educators might feel toward the project. Some might argue that (as I noted above), since boys still have many advantages over girls in the world of work and money, any special attention to male under-achievement in the educational domain might just serve to further bolster or "re-inscribe" male privilege. The authors did successfully persuade me that their project is not anti-feminist. I think we'd all be better off with more men whose literate potential was more fully actualized. I don't feel that attention to that issue takes away from (for example) my daughters' education. Indeed, I would much rather my daughters have more (rather than less and fewer) fully literate boys around them.

Another aspect of Chapter 1 that I appreciated was that the authors addressed the possibility that crude attempts to change English curricula to focus on reading materials that boys might like have the potential just to re-enforce boys' limited roles and preferences--"rather than to expand on or re-define them" (12). Since Chapter 1 is largely a "lit review," they note previous studies that have addressed this issue. The authors' balanced, nuanced consideration of this problem further won me over. I guess I did wonder a bit, when I first picked up this book, whether there was going to be much more to this book than just a crude recommendation to make reading materials more "boyish."

Finally, I appreciated the fact that the authors repeatedly, in the opening sections of the book, make reference to the fact that they themselves had not been "average" boys when it came to their own reading interests and literacy development--and they note that this fact makes them appreciate the extent to which the picture of the "average" boy can fail to capture complexity. Indeed, I was surprised by some of the details in the boys' profiles in the Interchapter immediately following Chapter 1. Clearly, these authors are trying to capture more than just crude averages, a rough approximation, a general picture, or stereotypes. I am, in several ways, impressed by the nuanced picture they're already starting to convey--even very early on in the book.

Chapter 1

First of all, I am really enjoying this book so far. The writing style is easy to follow and the subject matter is proving to be intriguing.

One thing that I am really glad about is that they address the issue of feminism and why they are writing a book specifically on the male gender at the very beginning of the book. I think that addressing that issue on the outset really makes their purpose as the authors, and the purpose of the book very clear.

In the beginning of the first chapter, Smith and Wilhelm set forth some statistics ultimately showing that, "the gap between the girls and boys is 'comparable to the difference between Whites and racial/ethnic groups that have suffered systematic social and economic discrimination in this country'" (2). This was really surprising to me. They then go on to list various contributing factors, or, possible contributing factors, which also surprised me. I had never thought that perhaps standardized testing maybe favors female responses? I don't know how founded this claim is. The way they put it makes sense, but I am still slightly skeptical.

Their take on whether much of boys' behavior is biologically determined versus socially constructed was somewhat problematic to me. I understand that they believe that looking at behavior from the point of view that it is socially constructed makes sense to them as teachers and for their study, but I feel like they are ignoring the fact that it is both. Biology does have a lot to do with the sex differences, and isn't it only fair, in examining male difficulties, to take this into account? How can they fully examine the situation by not addressing the biological aspect of the differences?

I read a book once (ah! the name is escaping me!) written by a psychologist who had a son and tried her very best to make sure his world was as gender-neutral as possible. Her son, though given trucks and barbies to play with, would gravitate to the trucks, and when he did play with the barbies, it was to beat them up and run them over with the trucks. The book is a lot more extensive, but basically it shows that biology does have a lot to do with the difference in the different sexes' behavior. I am sure that social factors also contribute hugely--maybe even more than biological factors, but I think that the authors should address that issue instead of dismissing it completely. Perhaps I'm thinking into this too much? The more I think about it, what could taking the biology aspect into account really help to contribute to our understanding of male literacy issues? Any thoughts?