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| Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, a favorite childhood book of mine |
At the Reading is Fundamental website, many parental strategies are outlined in order to make reading seem more enticing for all teen students, but so many of these can be adapted to a classroom setting that including the website feels right. Many of the outlined strategies are familiar to incoming teachers, such as setting an example of making reading "cool", or at the very least vital to a regular academic routine. A complicated pitch to teens on the subject of reading, at least for many of them, is the idea of "becoming an expert" on whatever they are interested in. Twenty years ago, sure, a teen could learn all there is to know about basketball by perusing a few books written by historians and retired coaches. Today, however, their standards for the intake of information have changed, with information on both how the game is played and the history of it bombarding them at all times, if they so choose. Does taking in this information count as "reading" if it comes in the form of an app on their mobile device, or a Bill Simmons blog on the ESPN site? It may, especially if those holding the keys to such valuable information continue to take to the digital formats. It might be the responsibility of parents and educators to adapt instruction to include these formats, so long as they can include the classics of literature that shaped current educators to be rabid about Language Arts.
Imagine my delight, when searching for ideas on motivating boys to read, I came across the website dedicated to it. On a popular entry on the Getting Boys to Read page, Holly J from the Rochester Parenting Examiner details the important relationship between any youngster and the literature they are allowed to access. She astutely points out that adult writers constantly target adults; therefore, those producing young adult literature are able to more aptly write "to" young people, including describing issues and developmental "tasks" outlined by Robert J. Havinghurst. These tasks include "selecting and preparing for an occupation", "acquiring more mature social skills", "achieving a masculine or feminine sex role", "accepting the changes in one's body", and "achieving emotional independence from parents and other adults". Holly cites defenses of distributing YA literature in public schools, using their points to drive home the point that modern teen juggernauts such as Twilight and The Hunger Games were inspired by Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson, respectively.
Overall, it seems like the key to motivating boys to read is mixing a solid amount of literature dedicated to the classics in with YA literature, and ensuring a balance between male and female-directed reading. Holly J reminds readers that the first "young adult" novel was The Outsiders, written about a gang...of boys. For my part, I recall my love of reading truly igniting in 8th grade when we were asked to read Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. A potent extended metaphor for not only the cyclical nature of being born, getting older and losing control but also the changing body and raging emotions of puberty, the novel enamored me for reasons that I would be unable to describe until college. Not only did the thematic strands of the text resonate with me, a special note must also be made of the form of the novel, taking shape with Charley's journals throughout the story. As it begins, the journals seem hastily written and poorly constructed and as his treatments improve his intelligence, the reading level of the journals nears college-level. Imagine my heartbreak, as a child, spotting the first typos in the middle of the novel, signalling Charley's descent into fear and madness again. These techniques are present in popular fiction today; in one of my classes I spotted a student reading Push, the source material for the 2009 film Precious. I believe that these interesting textual presentations can enthrall students as easily as recognizable characters, but when they can get both out of one novel, lifelong readers may be born.
I really wish that more parents would read with their children. There is so much pressure for parents to read to their children from an early age, but there should be equal responsibility placed on the parents of adolescents. As a preteen, I would love when my mother would recommend Stephen King books to me and would become so animated when talking about the latest historical romance novel she read. Unfortunately, my father never engaged in those conversations with my brothers; I believe that if he would have expressed an interest in reading, rather than telling them to read a book because they "have to", they would have fallen in love with reading as I did. At parent-teacher conferences, it may be worth suggesting to the parents of unmotivated boys to start a casual book club with their son(s). Having conversations about books outside of school helps make it seem less like a chore and more like a treat.
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