How to Get Boys to Read: A Book Review of Going with the Flow
How can literature teachers make reading come alive for boys? Why are boys lagging behind girls in their reading skills? I just finished reading a book that answers those questions and deserves to belong on the bookshelf of every teacher of adolescents.
Going with the Flow: How to Engage Boys (and Girls) in Their Literacy Learning by Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm is a must-read for anyone teaching junior high or high school literature. Let me tell you why:
- The authors did their homework. The first thing I noticed was that these guys went out and spent time talking to teenage boys. They didn’t just survey them; they visited with them, listened to them, and learned from them. They went right to the source.
- They resisted the obvious. It would have been easy to come up with a reading list of can’t-miss books for boys, but they rejected this for two very good reasons: “…no single text or kind of text appealed to all of the young men in our study. And we worry that choosing texts that appeal to most boys reinforces what some theorists call hegemonic masculinity, the idea that there’s just one appropriate way to be a man.”
- They began with the right approach. Using “flow theory” as their starting point, Smith and Wilhelm outline a plan to help reading become a “flow experience,” where “people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.” Wouldn’t that be a goal worth striving for? A literature classroom where everyone got so involved with their books that nothing else seemed to matter?
- They found workable solutions and gave real examples. Their conclusions are realistic and applicable to the everyday classroom. At one point, the authors outline an entire unit on reliability of narrators that’s worth the price of the book in itself.
If you teach junior or senior high literature, you need to read this book today. The authors use clear language, concrete examples and solid research to help tackle one of the biggest challenges facing literature teachers today.
Going with the Flow: How to Engage Boys (and Girls) in Their Literacy Learning
