I have had a great week, because I have been able to spent a great deal of time with all my nephews. We have had a lot of family in town and its been great to see all the boys in the family together It's also been great that I'm reading this book because a lot of what I've been experiencing with the boys have been echoed in Wilhelm & Smiths work. My six year old son is the youngest of the group by a least 7 years and he is right there with the others, trying his best to keep up. The older boys have been awesome; they encourage him, teach him and include him. I have witnessed all the aspects of what the book refers to as flow.
The book speaks of the Flow Experience with regard to the activities that boys engage in, and then Wilhelm and Smith relate it to boys experiences with literate actives. In the last chapters, particularly chapter five they look to the reading logs of the boys again and focus their attention on the the forth element of the Flow Experience according to their list--A focus on the immediate experience. One of the key aspects of the concept of that immediate experience is that of the social.They talk about this throughout the book. And in being social and having that social experience as a key component to developing relationships, Smith and Wilhelm look to the reading practices of the boy in their study to find that boys will be more engage in the reading when they can develop a relationship with the characters in a book. Although boys tend to like text that provides an immediate experience, like magazines and instructional text, they can relate to more aesthetic text like stories and novels if the can relate to the story and characters. The biggest problem with engaging boys in literature is being able to entice their interest early on in a book in order to keep them engaged. Most young men will read a book, and if it doesn't keep their interest in the first 15 minutes or so they will put it down. Smith and Wilhelm recommend frontloading before an assignment is read. Linking the text to the lives of the students. If they can relate to the story and the characters, the will want to engage in a relationship with the text. They will positive reading experiences.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Sunday, June 30, 2013
I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate||Spoken Word
There has been a common thread I have been seeing in our blogs that is woven into our readings, our conversations that deal with the Common Core Standards, the way we test our students and the statements that revolve around the questions if we are failing our students when it comes to literacy in our schools. Even in the book that I'm reading is asking "How do we make reading more visible?" How do we engage our students and make the learning relevant to their lives now and to the life they are going to live?
I love this Video. Check it out.
I love this Video. Check it out.
Mostly Outside, Never Inside
For the most part, the book has dealt a lot of the background research around literacy in the lives of young men, how relates to gender, social-economic, ethnic and racial backgrounds. They have looked at what boys like to do and why they do it. Wilhelm and Smith have taken us through the work of Csikzimihalyi on "flow" and human happiness and its importance to their research. They have introduced us to the boys in their study and have painted a picture of who they are and their individual character traits. Through the interviews with these boys we have learned that almost every single one of then see the value of school, even though that are not that engaged. The boys in the study are engaged in literacy, its just a matter of defining what that looks like. And what Wilhelm and Smith are looking very closely at the situations that promote literacy in the daily lives of these boys. "We take a close look at how school and life literacies are perceived and practiced in mostly different ways, how our boys valued and devalued certain kinds of literate activity, and the connections of these attitudes to specific ideas about how people should be and behave" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). They do this by having the boys in the study keep a reading log throughout their day, from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep. The authors focus in on the first three characteristics of Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" experience and it directly relates to Literate Activity.
1. A Senses of Control and Confidence
2. A Challenge that Requires an Appropriate Level of Skill
3. Clear Goals and Feedback
Through their study it was clear that the boys wanted to engage in reading activities that fed their interest. And these activities that involved reading were very broad and open-ended. The boys embraced the freedom of choice in the type of literate activities they engaged in. Most of the reading that they did enjoy was the reading that was done outside of school. The reading that they engaged in almost always had a purpose, it usually informed the things that they enjoyed. Now, in looking at how the boys in the study used reading and other literate activity, both in and out of school, how do we engage their in school reading and learning while providing a sense of control. As teachers we need to make the reading in our curriculum more visible. We need to be able to relate it to their lives. They talk about (in a round about way) using inquiry bases learning as a model. They also talk about Willhelms' use of drama to engage students like we are seeing from other blogs of our classmates that are reading Wilhelm's Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension.
1. A Senses of Control and Confidence
2. A Challenge that Requires an Appropriate Level of Skill
3. Clear Goals and Feedback
Through their study it was clear that the boys wanted to engage in reading activities that fed their interest. And these activities that involved reading were very broad and open-ended. The boys embraced the freedom of choice in the type of literate activities they engaged in. Most of the reading that they did enjoy was the reading that was done outside of school. The reading that they engaged in almost always had a purpose, it usually informed the things that they enjoyed. Now, in looking at how the boys in the study used reading and other literate activity, both in and out of school, how do we engage their in school reading and learning while providing a sense of control. As teachers we need to make the reading in our curriculum more visible. We need to be able to relate it to their lives. They talk about (in a round about way) using inquiry bases learning as a model. They also talk about Willhelms' use of drama to engage students like we are seeing from other blogs of our classmates that are reading Wilhelm's Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Do The Right Thing
One thing about "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys" that I have grown to really enjoy is that the authors begin each chapter with a personal view that leads you into their work. In chapter two it was Michael's experience of being woken by the boys in his neighborhood skating in the street, he drops a Tony Hawk reference which dates him (and me too) and then leads into the discussion about the concept of "Flow". In the next chapter, where they take a look at the instrumental value of school and reading, they begin as follows--"Every night, both of us engage in the same ritual with our daughters. 'So, how was school today?' we'll ask. And the wealth of information we hope for never materializes. To find out about our kids' experience in school, we have to piece together an understanding from a variety of sources: watching them do homework, looking over the assignment, reading with them, talking to them about their report cards, going to Parents' Night, and looking for patterns in the very short answers we typically receive from them when we ask them about school directly." (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002) They go on to relate the boys that they have taught and the boys in their study to being like their daughters. They wanted to find out more about boys feelings about school. In order to get an understanding they created a series of fictitious profiles and then worked with the boys individually and posed three questions.
1. What, if anything do you admire about the character in the profile?
2. What, if anything don't you admire about the character in the profile?
3. Where, if anywhere do you see yourself in the profile.
They divided this study into three focus areas.
1. The Instrumental verses the immediate.
2.What is the price of success? The conflict between being competent and being social.
3. The Impact of Race and Class.
There was a lot of information packed in these three sections of this chapter, not to mention the fictitious profiles that the created played an important role but what was so surprising to me was the fact nearly all of the boys in the interview believed in the instrumental value of school. When it came to the first of the three focus areas, instrumental v. immediate the majority of the boys saw school and reading as future-directed. More or less as a means to an end, but they recognized the necessity of it. When they addressed the second focus area, the boys again pointed out that, yes school is important but there was a focus on well-roundedness. There needed to be balance. And when they addressed race, none of the boys really saw race as an issue, class on the other hand was a bit different. The wealthier kids in the study that came from more educated families seemed to have a sense of entitlement. Wilhelm and Smith say it best--
"In summary, like the activity interviews, the profile interviews offer both hope and a challenge. The boys' profound believe in the importance of school is something that we ought to be able to tap, as is their recognition of the importance of reading. The fact that they did not see reading as a feminized activity is encouraging. But their view of reading as schoolish appears to have negative consequences. And it poses a dilemma: How can schools make reading seem less schoolish?" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002)
1. What, if anything do you admire about the character in the profile?
2. What, if anything don't you admire about the character in the profile?
3. Where, if anywhere do you see yourself in the profile.
They divided this study into three focus areas.
1. The Instrumental verses the immediate.
2.What is the price of success? The conflict between being competent and being social.
3. The Impact of Race and Class.
There was a lot of information packed in these three sections of this chapter, not to mention the fictitious profiles that the created played an important role but what was so surprising to me was the fact nearly all of the boys in the interview believed in the instrumental value of school. When it came to the first of the three focus areas, instrumental v. immediate the majority of the boys saw school and reading as future-directed. More or less as a means to an end, but they recognized the necessity of it. When they addressed the second focus area, the boys again pointed out that, yes school is important but there was a focus on well-roundedness. There needed to be balance. And when they addressed race, none of the boys really saw race as an issue, class on the other hand was a bit different. The wealthier kids in the study that came from more educated families seemed to have a sense of entitlement. Wilhelm and Smith say it best--
"In summary, like the activity interviews, the profile interviews offer both hope and a challenge. The boys' profound believe in the importance of school is something that we ought to be able to tap, as is their recognition of the importance of reading. The fact that they did not see reading as a feminized activity is encouraging. But their view of reading as schoolish appears to have negative consequences. And it poses a dilemma: How can schools make reading seem less schoolish?" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002)
Going With The Flow
This part of the book focuses on what boys like to do and why they do it. The fact that boys are getting a bit of negative attention for falling short in school (this being a generalization) is a narrow view, they are in fact succeeding in other aspects of their lives. "If boys are successful outside of school, then it raises the question of whether it's the context or the kids that are to blame for their problems in school." (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). They set out to develop a study; to have the boys that they were working with to rank the activities they most enjoyed and explain why. They then interviewed the boys one on one. Excerpts from the interviews are used to re-enforce the concepts that they addressed in the rest of the book. For the sake of this section, they focus on the activities that the boys enjoy doing. What they found was that the boys that the were working with did not fall in line with some of the defined generalizations of other studies. Rather then looking toward gender oriented studies, Wilhelm and Smith look to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist that researches a concept central to some of the ideas in this book which he calls "flow".
"Flow" according to Csikszentmihalyi is "joy, creativity, the process of total involvement in life" and his research is based on the simple premise that "more than anything else, men and women seek happiness". Wilhelm and Smith narrow down the flow experience into four main characteristics
1. A sense of control and competence: The consensus among the boys interviewed was that they liked to engage in activities that they enjoyed doing and were good at. The feel ing of cotrol and competence in an activity was important to them
2. A challenge that requires an appropriate level of skill: Being challenged was an important factor in the level of engagement. If the boys weren't challenged in a particular activity, they would likely lose interest. The same was true if the challenge was beyond their achievement, they would likely avoid the effort. Self-efficacy was important. With regards to the reading in school, some of the boys felt overmatch or had a hard time getting into the reading, particularly the more aesthetic texts like novels and plays.
3. Clear goals and feedback: This relates to being challenged, overcoming that challenge and gaining a sense of competence and having immediate feedback was important. For example, reading a novel does not provide an immediate feedback like more efferent instructional text do. The same is true of magazines and newspapers.
4. A focus on the immediate experience: "To these boys, the immediate experience was key" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002).
These elements of "flow" are re-enforced and supported by the Vygotskian theory of ZPD (zone of proximal development) referenced by the authors on pages 37 and 40 "which stresses that learning can only occur when the learners are challenged and is able to perform with assistance what he or she would not be able to do alone". With that being said, there is a social aspect of which is very important. as was mentioned before, it's always better with friends.
"Flow" according to Csikszentmihalyi is "joy, creativity, the process of total involvement in life" and his research is based on the simple premise that "more than anything else, men and women seek happiness". Wilhelm and Smith narrow down the flow experience into four main characteristics
1. A sense of control and competence: The consensus among the boys interviewed was that they liked to engage in activities that they enjoyed doing and were good at. The feel ing of cotrol and competence in an activity was important to them
2. A challenge that requires an appropriate level of skill: Being challenged was an important factor in the level of engagement. If the boys weren't challenged in a particular activity, they would likely lose interest. The same was true if the challenge was beyond their achievement, they would likely avoid the effort. Self-efficacy was important. With regards to the reading in school, some of the boys felt overmatch or had a hard time getting into the reading, particularly the more aesthetic texts like novels and plays.
3. Clear goals and feedback: This relates to being challenged, overcoming that challenge and gaining a sense of competence and having immediate feedback was important. For example, reading a novel does not provide an immediate feedback like more efferent instructional text do. The same is true of magazines and newspapers.
4. A focus on the immediate experience: "To these boys, the immediate experience was key" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002).
These elements of "flow" are re-enforced and supported by the Vygotskian theory of ZPD (zone of proximal development) referenced by the authors on pages 37 and 40 "which stresses that learning can only occur when the learners are challenged and is able to perform with assistance what he or she would not be able to do alone". With that being said, there is a social aspect of which is very important. as was mentioned before, it's always better with friends.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Meet The Crew
As much as Wilhelm and Smith take into account much of the research and data that was already available to them and giving us the reader a comprehensive review of how they used that data, they also worked directly with a fairly large group of boys to supplement their study. At the end of each chapter they introduce us to four of the boys in their study. One great thing that I have picked up through these "interchapters" is that Wilhelm and Smith worked with a wide variety of boys.
Out of the fifty boys that they had at the beginning of their study, the boys varied in age and school level, anywhere from 7th grade to 12th grade. Not only that, they had boys from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. 32 of the boys were European-American, 10 were African-American, 5 were Puerto Rican and 2 Asian-Americans. The boys also came from different school setting, for example, about 25% were from private schools, 25% from urban public schools, 25% from suburban public schools and 25% from rural schools. The boys in the study also had a wide variety of interest. As I am reading the research the these guys are reviewing and applying, I am seeing how they filling some of the holes in the research and data that is out there.
Early on in the book they refer to the "boy code". The concept behind the "boy code" comes from the book Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood by William Pollack, where Pollack describes young men as being victims of this "boy code" and that problems with boys in schools stems from this code that endorses self-relience and action and precludes intimate relationships among young men (Newkirk, 2002). According to Pollack and as cited by Smith & Wilhelm, this "boy code" "governs male behavior through culturally created and perpetuated 'myths' of masculinity. This socially constructed code, according to Pollack, harms boys, so society, which defines and enforces social definitions of manhood, must actively interrogate and redefine masculinity" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). The boys in Wilhelm and Smith's study did not fit within these perimeters. The boys in their study almost unanimously said that interacting with their friends allowed them to be themselves. That they could talk more intimately with their friends. "The 'boy code' that Pollack (1999) describes as making intimate relationships taboo was not supported by the evidence in our Interviews" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002).
Reading the short bios on the boys and then reading their transactions with Smith and Wilhelm as the book progresses, You can start seeing that some of the preconceived generalizations don't always hold true. In some ways, it is how they are engaged by their teachers in school. Some of the these boys love to read. In the Forward to the book, Thomas Newkirk mentions that "literacy grows out of relationships" and as I read about these boys and their relationships, when it comes to literacy there is indeed a social component.
My next post will introduce the concept of "Flow" and engageing in the things that brings us joy.
Out of the fifty boys that they had at the beginning of their study, the boys varied in age and school level, anywhere from 7th grade to 12th grade. Not only that, they had boys from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. 32 of the boys were European-American, 10 were African-American, 5 were Puerto Rican and 2 Asian-Americans. The boys also came from different school setting, for example, about 25% were from private schools, 25% from urban public schools, 25% from suburban public schools and 25% from rural schools. The boys in the study also had a wide variety of interest. As I am reading the research the these guys are reviewing and applying, I am seeing how they filling some of the holes in the research and data that is out there.
Early on in the book they refer to the "boy code". The concept behind the "boy code" comes from the book Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood by William Pollack, where Pollack describes young men as being victims of this "boy code" and that problems with boys in schools stems from this code that endorses self-relience and action and precludes intimate relationships among young men (Newkirk, 2002). According to Pollack and as cited by Smith & Wilhelm, this "boy code" "governs male behavior through culturally created and perpetuated 'myths' of masculinity. This socially constructed code, according to Pollack, harms boys, so society, which defines and enforces social definitions of manhood, must actively interrogate and redefine masculinity" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). The boys in Wilhelm and Smith's study did not fit within these perimeters. The boys in their study almost unanimously said that interacting with their friends allowed them to be themselves. That they could talk more intimately with their friends. "The 'boy code' that Pollack (1999) describes as making intimate relationships taboo was not supported by the evidence in our Interviews" (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002).
Reading the short bios on the boys and then reading their transactions with Smith and Wilhelm as the book progresses, You can start seeing that some of the preconceived generalizations don't always hold true. In some ways, it is how they are engaged by their teachers in school. Some of the these boys love to read. In the Forward to the book, Thomas Newkirk mentions that "literacy grows out of relationships" and as I read about these boys and their relationships, when it comes to literacy there is indeed a social component.
My next post will introduce the concept of "Flow" and engageing in the things that brings us joy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)