 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com Writing test scores indicate that boys have fallen far behind girls across the grades. In general, boys don't enjoy writing as much as girls. What's wrong? How can we do a better of job of creating “boy-friendly” classrooms so their voices can be heard? In Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices Ralph Fletcher draws upon his years of experience as staff developer, children's book author, and father of four boys. He also taps the insights from dozens of writing teachers around the US and abroad. Boy Writers asks teachers to imagine the writing classroom from a boy's perspective, and consider specific steps we might take to create stimulating classrooms for boys. Topic choice emerges as a crucial issue. The subjects many boys like to write about (war, weapons, outlandish fiction, zany or bathroom humor) often do not get a warm reception from teachers. Ralph argues that we must “widen the circle” and give boys more choice if we want to engage them as writers. How? We must begin by recognizing boys and the world in which they live. Boy Writers explores important questions such as: - What subjects are boy writers passionate about, and what motivates them as writers?
- Why do boys like to incorporate violence into their stories, and how much should be allowed?
- Why do we so often misread and misunderstand the humor boys include in their stories?
In addition, the book looks at: how handwriting can hamstring boy writers, and how drawing may help; welcoming boy-friendly writing genres in our classrooms; ways to improve our conferring with boys; and more. Each chapter begins with a thorough discussion of a topic and ends with a highly practical section titled: "What can I do in my classroom?" Boy Writers does not advocate promoting the interests of boys at the expense of girls. Rather, it argues that developing sensitivity to the unique facets of boy writers will help teachers better address the needs of all their students. |
Average Customer Rating:   Must Read All teachers should read this book. Repeat: All teachers should read this book. I am a mom of boys and a 4th grade teacher who tries really, really hard to run an equitable classroom. I love stinky, naughty, squirrely, squirmy boys. After reading Fletcher's book I will be changing some of my practices.
I knew there was an "issue" among boy writers, but didn't get it until my 1st grader brought home a terrible piece of writing about stuffed animals. I was crabbing at him when he said, "But I thought it was supposed to be about tea parties and dress up, and I don't do that mom!" That hit me like a ton of bricks. He has a fabulous, fabulous teacher and I know that she never expressed that sentiment. After discussing how he could have written about playing army or knights with his stuffed animals, I picked this little gem up.
Let me repeat it one more time: All teachers should read this book!!! Boy Writers and Motivation Flecture's Boy Writers explains the discrepancy between girls and boys in classroom writing and provides educators with practical advise to help to decrease this discrepancy. Flecture urges educators to investigate why boys are not willing to write at the same level as girls. He makes personal connections with the reader through male children's writing and challenges us to allow boys freedom to write with out boundaries.
"Behavior is shaped by and maintained by its consequences" (Skinner, 1989). Boys writing behavior and disengage in writing has been shaped by the experiences with writing in their past. Educators that insulted their handwriting or discouraged them from using humor, fantasy, or violence in their works helped to form and maintain this behavior. Boy's low self-efficacy in writing will typically result in the work avoidance in classrooms today (McCabe, 2006). Bandura's theory the belief about one's competence on a prospective task will influence their behavior on this task hammers home the importance of the role of the educator in creating situations for boys to be successful in writing.
While presenting Boy Writers to a graduate class, teachers shared with me their experiences with boy writers. Teachers shared having boys struggle to put a few words on a page where girls would fill pages with descriptive quality writing. Many of the teachers in this class used writing workshop which Flecture supports and have found that boys are more willing to write when allowed freedom. Teachers also shared with me using the book Guys write for Guys Read edited Jon Scieszka and daily reading for text by Ronald Dahl to create a more guy friendly classroom and another teacher has a boys writing club and allows children to spend time writing in their club each day. Together we discussed the importance of balancing instruction so that it was gender neutral and creating a writing curriculum where nothing is off limits.
Boy Writers is an excellent resource for educators trying to engage all children in the joy of writing. I came away from reading this book with renewed confidence in my own ability to help engage my male students in writing. Flecture did not answer all my questions, but he was able to examine to roles teachers have in engaging male in writing with witty personal stories, youth writing, and classroom applications.
McCabe, P. (2006). Convincing students they can learn to read. Clearing House, 79(6),
252-257.
Skinner, B. F. (1989). The origins of cognitive thought. Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior. Merrill
Publishing Copy Must Read for Educators In Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices, Fletcher set out to investigate why many boys are disengaged when it comes to writing and most importantly, what we can do, as educators, to engage boy writers. Fletcher obtained information about boy writers by interviewing and surveying boys of all ages, observing boys in writers' workshop, and interviewing and surveying approximately 100 teachers around the country. After compiling the data, Fletcher devised a list of common characteristics that boy writers posses. Then, Fletcher investigated when boys are engaged in writing (e.g. instant messaging, blogging, etc.) and determined how we could apply some of the same principles to writing in school (e.g. self-directed topic selection, content valued over mechanics, comfortable environment, etc.). Throughout the book, Fletcher included numerous suggestions for engaging boy writers. He even addressed issues of handwriting, humor, and violence.
As a fourth grade teacher and graduate student, I highly recommend this book. Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices is "an easy read," includes humor, and contains pertinent, practical information for teachers to help reach boy writers. Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices has the power to transform writing instruction and allow boy writers to reclaim their voices! It changed my students' writing While taking a course on teaching writing, one of the recommended texts was this book. I ordered it, and it really changed several things I am doing in my classes.
Most of my students are boys, and I had worried at how little they bought in to writing. The change in their attitudes and in their final product was quite startling. The guys had a voice, but I was keeping them from speaking.
This book can help parents and teachers to allow boys to build their writing and reading skills. Boys Will Be Boys Having trouble with boys who don't much want to write? Don't get their humor? Don't understand their interests? Wondering how you can get more work out of them, perhaps?
Teachers with questions like these would do well to read a book like BOY WRITERS. Ralph Fletcher examines genres that boys like (humor, non-fiction, parody, for instance) and genres they don't (personal narrative and other pieces requiring reflection, for instance). Fletcher also provides tips on what to do should the boys push the envelope a bit in their writing (and they will).
If you feel that there's not much difference between the boys' and the girls' work in your class, then you may not need to read this unless you're interested in gender research as it applies to education. If, on the other hand, you are often baffled by the XY chromosomed ones, by all means buy this book. It may not only be an eye opener, it may be a possibility opener for the boys in your classroom. They'll thank you for it (well, not to your face, but you get the idea...). |  |
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