on making your bed

The journal Gender and Education (Sept. 2008) conducted a study that measured engagement in Language Arts by examining the differences between 12- and 13-year-old boys and girls in terms of the story elements they gravitated toward. The study showed that, when given the opportunity, boys and girls both wrote about pretty much the same things when crafting their own stories; and, surprisingly to some, that boys were no less likely to be introspective and examine feelings.

If there were any thematic differences in the study, it was that boys were more likely to deviate from their plot or leave an unresolved ending than the girls were, but that neither gender showed more or less effort or length in their work. Both genders wrote about death, but girls were more likely to write about grief. Boys were more likely to write about running away, fighting with enemies, or discovering riches and treasure (which none of the girls wrote about). Most boys wrote stories in third person with male protagonists, and most girls wrote stories in third person with female protagonists.

In other words, we can see that boys have about the same attitude toward reading and writing as girls do, but environmental pressures push boys away from the pursuit.

In 2003, writing in Education Journal, David Taylor examined a pair of studies on boys and writing – what kinds of impediments interfered with boys becoming engaged as writers, and what were some possible routes around these roadblocks.

An overwhelming volume of evidence shows that, by the time they get into high school, boys’ achievement in writing falls behind that of girls. It is an important issue to address, since success in any area of academic curriculum depends on good writing and a developed degree of literacy.

If you’ve had the chance to spend significant amounts of time at different schools, or if you’ve raised more than one child through the school system, you probably have noticed that schools vary immensely in terms of their “cultures.” Simply stated, some high schools are completely opposite one another in terms of the prevailing cultural attitude toward learning. Taylor points out that when schools develop a perceptible anti-learning culture, boys’ peers label academic achievement as being “uncool.” You’ve seen schools like this, I’m sure. They frequently worship as heroes their “winningest” coaches and sports teams, giving an occasional and minute fraction of attention and praise to their scholars or kids who achieve academically or in the arts.

As Taylor points out, boys achieve the most “when the ethos of the school permits them to work hard without appearing uncool.”

Boys work harder when they know they are being closely monitored. Sit in any classroom and you’ll see that, as a predictable trait of the gender, it’s the boys who want to be paid attention to. It's probably one of the biggest reason why, as the New York Times reported very recently, that boys are no longer being admitted to early-grade gifted programs: they act too much like boys. They aren't dumber. It's just schools no longer want to deal with behaviors that are traits of the gender that demonstrate different learning and processing styles. So, girl up, boys.

An interesting study showed how, throughout school, boys’ writing is often less attended to than girls’. This is frequently due to the fact that girls’ handwriting is neater and more easily read, and boys, even in later grades, require much more effort on the part of their teachers to decipher their penmanship; so their work is often discounted on aesthetics rather than content. So they get the message that writing -- their writing -- doesn’t really matter.

day true

Back in 2005, the journal Teacher Librarian published a fascinating study that covered the spectrum of boys' attitudes toward reading, including why some boys read and others don't, and what can be done to get more boys into books and other forms of literacy. Here are just a few of the report's findings:

• Boys have a good attitude about reading: 45% consider it to be nerdy, 23% think that it is cool. I always though nerdy was cool, so that's a pretty sizable majority.

• Older boys who had lost interest in reading usually think it is no longer relevant to their lives, or, more importantly, not something they can share with their peers. The "sharing" with peers (and family) part plays a significant factor in most of the other data, too, and it's something that keeps coming up in study after study. It's one thing entirely for publishers to throw money and marketing behind name-brand authors who say things like "Boys should read because it's cool!!!" But if you aren't actually doing something about it, well, it just comes off as marketing and promotion. (And before you ask, let me anticipate your next question... and the answer is Yes, I do.)

• Another echo from yesterday's reports: Boys who do read are "more likely to have a father who reads at least sometimes." Um... yeah... that's exactly what I've been trying to tell Generation Dad out there. Remember... the future, the economy... if you don't think reading is going to give your sons a competitive edge, you've completely dropped off the planet. And if you don't care about it, well... you don't care about them.

• Boys who read are powerfully influenced by parental guidance and modeling. Translation: According to the Teacher Librarian study, boys who read tend to be good kids, which may make them "nerdy," but it definitely makes them "cool."

• The biggest difference between boy readers and boy non-readers appears in the proportion of those who have friends and parents who read. (This should probably be bold-faced, so I'll post it again) The biggest difference between boy readers and boy non-readers appears in the proportion of those who have friends and parents who read. Do the math, parents. Add up the information you see listed above. It's not rocket science, but the conclusions you should come to are reality-changing.

• And this one will be a big surprise to teachers and librarians who see “BOY” and point him to a particular stack of books… You know, the nonfiction titles about venomous animals and how to blow things up. In reality, boys and girls enjoy action and adventure, science fiction, and nonfiction similarly -- to the same degree. We have to admit that there are a lot of prejudicial, knee-jerk judgments that teachers and librarians can fall victim to when "summing up" the potential interest areas of their kids. You can't help it, and I'm guilty of it, too. Choice and access are the keys to developing a broad and well-supported base of literacy.

• And, finally, this is a very scary finding from the study: "Home and school see reading as an interest more appropriate for girls than for boys." Home. AND School. Okay. This was an extensive study. Thanks Teacher Librarian for illuminating this conclusion: schools tell boys that reading is for girls.

Yikes.

all when we were young

In the journal Gender Issues (June 2009), Judith Kleinfeld writes,

American boys are suffering serious problems. In education, these center in the areas of far lower literacy, lower school grades, lower engagement in school, higher dropout from school, higher rates of repeating a grade, higher rates of emotional disturbance and learning disabilities and placement in special education, higher rates of suspensions and expulsions, and lower rates of postsecondary enrollment and graduation... Young men are far less prepared than young women to succeed in the current knowledge-based economy, are more likely to suffer from substantial declines in real income, and are far more vulnerable to unemployment in times of economic recession.

That's quite a mess. And the problems start young. One study I looked at examined 5-year-old boys' attitudes toward reading by showing them pictures of kids engaged in all sorts of activities (including reading books). The study found that these emerging readers had already formed definite attitudes toward reading (ranging from hatred... yes, hatred, to enjoyment) that were strongly rooted in earlier experiences (mostly from day-care programs and household/family encounters with reading).

You might guess that the boys who fell more in the negative range frequently had experiences in their home or day-care environments that either did not model reading behaviors at all, or included messages (particularly from older male siblings, fathers, and other adults) that communicated to them that reading was "stupid," a "waste of time," and even "gay," while the boys who had the more positive perception read at home with their families and were able to choose and describe their favorite books (even if they couldn't recall the titles -- they knew what the books were about).

So... Dads... you know what this means, and you know which of those groups of boys mentioned above is headed toward crisis and which is headed toward college -- all at the age of five.

On the one hand, the thought that we have such an influence over kids to predetermine a significant predictor of life success at such an early age is frightening; on the other hand, it means we, as parents, have the opportunity to take the initiative and provide our sons with a set of values and skills that will tremendously affect their future economic and social success.

Because there is nothing our sons will ever be expected to do that they won't do better with higher skills in reading and writing. To sit back and simply observe the decline in literacy for boys as a population is to pave the way for a future in which males will become an economic, academic, and social underclass.

fourth of july

Happy Independence Day. I'll be back tomorrow.

the future of america

At the request of some of the audience members at last weekend's ALA Annual Conference, I am going to reprint a "cheat sheet" from some of the things I talked about in my speech (in multiple parts):

In this decade, boys have been referred to as "the new disadvantaged," for a number of reasons: There are plenty of studies that show how boys' reading and writing scores have increasingly declined relative to girls. Boys, compared to girls, are also much more likely to be labeled as "Learning Disabled," disciplinary problems (and significantly higher rates of suicide, too).

It's interesting to consider the nature/nurture perspective about boys and reading -- and why girls are more verbally inclined at an earlier age. A recent study showed that boys are more likely to have their own bedrooms and their own DVD players and computers, compared to girls. I think that's kind of telling in a number of ways.

If boys' achievement scores in reading and writing are declining, and they are reporting less time spent on reading and higher rates of discouragement, what can we do to help bring boys back as readers? Because I know it didn’t used to be this way, and declining scores indicate that we are definitely doing something wrong. I mean, you would think we could at the very least maintain stability in reading and writing levels.

Here are three ideas:

1. The male reader role-model. Studies reported in The Australian Journal of Education (April 2008) showed that boys' perception that reading is a feminine pursuit has a great deal to do with the over-representation of female reading role-models in schools and at home, particularly -- for American boys -- during grade school years, when boys are developing their sense of gender role identity.

Bottom line: we don't have enough guys teaching, especially teaching reading to kids under the age of 13. And we don't have enough DADS reading at home. A 2006 study conducted in the U.S. went on to show that boys at this age also perform and achieve better for same-sex teachers.

Be warned, too, as we see the American economy transforming before our eyes -- shifting away from a labor force that emphasizes brawn, to a smaller, more educated labor force that emphasizes brain -- there's nothing we can do about the shift itself. This phenomenon occurs in economies throughout history as resources and specialization -- the human division of labor -- become geographically confined. Dads, schools, teachers, mentors: we have a responsibility to our sons.

2. The use of technology. This is a perfect time for this. Remember the finding that showed that boys are more likely than girls to have their own computer? In schools, boys identify computers as "their" technology.

Dads with teenage sons and daughters (like me) know this is true.

Here's what studies regarding technology have shown:

• Boys have a more positive attitude toward computers than girls, and their comprehension scores improve when reading stories from a computer as compared to reading stories from a book. (okay, that one kind of scares me).

• Boys are three times more likely than girls to attend summer computer camps, and they view computers as being innately "male." Some educational theorists suggest that the consistent findings that boys' literacy scores improve with the use of technology makes boys "differently literate" from girls.

Think about what it means to be "differently literate."

And then, go get your kid an iPad and download some Macmillan books for your son to read.

3. What boys say they like. A study in the journal The Reading Teacher (November 2009) points out the sad truths about the global crisis as far as reading and boys are concerned, but went on to look at what boys "like" when it came to books.

First of all, I can't understate the importance of choice when it comes to encouraging boys to read. Boys need choice. Too many schools, as one study points out, actually discourage boys from reading by doing things like limiting the number of book reports they can do on certain genres of fiction, or making them choose titles from limited lists.

Here's what the boys in the study said they liked:

• Books that "looked good." Yep, boys liked books with cool covers. As a matter of fact, just a day after returning from ALA, I received an email from a boy whose parents brought home a stack of books from the conference. He told me that he chose to read The Marbury Lens first because of how much the cover grabbed his attention (He also said he loved the book).

• Boys like series books, or preferred to stick with a particular author (Star Wars books -- this was one of the titles mentioned where a boy was told he could only do two book reports -- so he quit reading).

• Boys like following a character through a number of situations, even over the course of years for series books. Boys said they preferred characters who weren't depicted as perfect, but had flaws.

• Boys respond positively to book discussions when they establish partnerships with other boy readers. Particularly, they like to respond to the question, "What do boys like to read?"

And... parents of boys, librarians, and teachers of boy readers really enjoyed taking part in this conversation.

independence

This month is going to be busy in a very positive way.

First, I am really, truly, working again on another project. Although I'd started a couple things about two months ago, I decided to make myself stop working on them because I'd been going through this period of intense nothing-matters self-loathing.

Anyway, I know when I'm really, truly, working on something new because my desk gets really messy and I keep stacks of scrawled notes (in code) in red pen. I never leave notes lying around that anyone can understand except for me -- my notes use numbers, letters, and lots of Xs, and only I can understand them.

When I travel, I keep the same codes on Post-It notes stuck to the inside of my laptop.

Also, this month I am supposed to be getting my editorial letter for Stick -- my next book, due out in 2011, and to say that I am looking forward to getting back to work on that novel would be a colossal understatement. I really love that book.

And, there are some more exciting things happening with my November release, The Marbury Lens, that I'll be talking about here in a couple of weeks.

July has always been my favorite month for work.

being the bad guy

All stories have bad guys. Well, antagonists don't necessarily have to be "guys." But I like my antagonists, because they provide some of the best, most escapist, refreshing diversion when slogging through the work of writing.

Like good guys, I think bad guys are also part of the internal psychology of the author. Some writers may bristle at that thought, and maybe that's why some authors choose to make their bad guys totally over-the-top in terms of their behavior; and totally shallow in terms of their personalities. That's a kind of defense mechanism, I think, because some writers write as though making their bad guys have identifiable human qualities will be personally compromising to the author.

I think the baddest bad guy I've ever made up was Chase, in Ghost Medicine. Chase is soulless, and he doesn't care about anything at all. I'll be honest that I kind of feel sorry for Mitch, from In the Path of Falling Objects, because, although he is very cruel, he has moments of compassion and we all know that he's genuinely ill. In fact, I've received a lot of comments from readers of that book telling me how strongly they identify with many of Mitch's quirks. And the bad guys in The Marbury Lens are a little more subtle, too, because most of the characters act as bad guys at times. Jack is frequently his own worst enemy, and even his best friend, Conner, betrays him at one point. And then there's Freddie -- a really nice guy, model citizen, good Samaritan -- on the outside, at least.

I was just thinking about this today because I've read recent efforts at novels where the bad guys are so disappointingly shallow and unconvincing, and I happen to be writing a new bad guy at the moment, who is one ton of fun.