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.