Struggles of Young Males in an Eglish Classroom

1) How does the "troubled classroom" stereotype affect the teachers approach to teaching the class?

2) How does context play a role with boys and their achievement in school?

3) In what ways can we (teachers) promote literacy among young men in our classroom?

4) How will having a male teacher in class change the boys' demeanor in your class?

5) do males and females find the same literature appealing? What types of texts appeal to male readers?



I have just begun to scratch the surface in my research. However, I found an article that supports my subject, but I have yet to read the whole thing...

I hope that I am on the right track and plan on hammering away on this more this weekend. Please include any feedback that may help me. I apologize for not having more of it completed at this time however I will be back on track by next week.

Again, I hope my questions have the proper direction to drive my topic. I look forward to reading your feedback. Thank you!


The two articles that I plan on using are:


Reading Problems, Attentional Deficits, and Current Mental Health Status in Adjudicated Adolescent Males

Written by: Natalie O'Brien
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling
John Shelley-Tremblay


Psychosocial factors and reading difficulties: Students with reading difficulties drawn from a representative population sample

witten by: Anne Mari Undheim and Anne Mari Sund

Persepolis

Once again we are following around a young kid, girl, as we read about life through her eyes. It becomes more meaningful to know that this is an actual experience from this author's eyes. It is neat to see how this character grows up before the readers eyes. I feel that the reader becomes more empathetic and drawn into a story when reading from a child's perspective.

Anyway, the story starts by followng the a little girl, Satrapi, during the Islamic Revolution of the late 1970's early 1980's. During this period, she struggles with her beliefs, whether believe what she is taught in school, or believe her parents. Early in the book, she compares the revolution to a bicycle, if the protests stop moving the revolution will stop. She begins to read up on numerous revolutionaries to fit in. In the middle part of the book she meets her uncle who was just recently released from prison. After he shows up, all hell breaks loose. Cities are being bombed and people close to the family are showing up dead. On top of that, her mother is attacked by two men, who threaten rape upon her if she continues to not wear her veil.

Overall, this story would not do justice if it weren't for the pictures that accompanied the words. I feel that through most of the book words are not needed. Which brings me to the article that writes about picture walks through graphic novels. Yes, these two authors talk about a wordless novel, however, that doesn't mean a picture walk can't take place in Persepolis. I feel that this novel would be a fun one to picture walk. The pictures are very descriptive and involved. There were times when I found myself looking at the pictures to get the idea of what was being written.

All in all, this was a fun text and one that can definitely be used in the classroom. I remember reading boring autobiographies in middle and high school and would have loved to have a different autobiography text to supplement my studies. I would like to watch the movie. She kept me drawn in throughout the text and made me very interested in her story.