Motivating African American Teenage Boys to Read Text

by Alfred W. Tatum, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb

Many teachers are handicapped when it comes to motivating African American teenage males to read. In large part, teachers are struggling because they do not understand the African American male or historical orientations that informed the reading practices of the African American male in the United States. In this article, I address a question that I am often asked: "How can I motivate African American teenage boys to read?"

I will address this question by first sharing the words of Q (pseudonym), a sixteen-year-old African American male who was retained three times in elementary school. I will then share a historical account of factors that influenced African American males to read text. Finally, I will offer several proposed solutions for creating conditions to motivate African American teenage boys to read.

Eight months ago, I became involved in Q's life after being informed that a member of his family feared he would be dead or in jail if he did not become a better reader. The family member predicted that Q would drop out of school and carve out a path that would lead to negative life outcomes. The connection between his projected life outcome and reading was made because his retentions were based on his failure at three different points to achieve a prescribed minimum standard on his school district's reading assessment. I began conducting a case study with Q to identify the characteristics of text he found most useful for helping him become a better reader and strengthening his identity.

I met Q at his home twice a month and took him to a bookstore or library near his home to discuss texts. Our sessions were approximately 1� hours long. Q would provide insights about a text he selected from a menu of choices I offered during our previous meeting. He was asked to respond to the following questions:

1. Why did you choose the text you chose?
2. What did you like about the text?
3. How did the text affect you?
4. How did the text hold your attention?
5. What lesson(s) would you share from the text?
6. What parts of the text seemed true?
7. Would you recommend this text to another African American teenage male?
8. Would you recommend that this text be used in school?
9. How did the text help you think about your life?

Q's responses provide a window into the types of texts that are potentially motivating to African American teenage males.
 

Handbook for Boys: A Conversation with Q

During our fifth session, ten weeks into the case study, Q shared his insights about Handbook for Boys (Myers, 2002). Excerpts from the interview transcript are provided below:

Tatum: What did you like about this text?

Q: What I liked about this book is [there] is a young boy and he had people that stayed on him about his problems. They talked to him ... Duke [is] in the barbershop teaching him. There are a lot of people coming in [the barbershop] that are messing up, and he tells [the young man in the story] that he should learn from the mistakes that people make.... So as the story goes on, [Duke] starts teaching [the young man in the story] how to be successful and how to just like stay with the schoolwork and stuff.

Tatum: Talk about that.

Q: There is a point in the book where a young boy asks Duke if [he] knew what [he] knew now back then, would [his] life be better? And he was like ... I think my life would be a little better than it is. [The young man in the story] started feeling a little bit better about himself. I mean, this book was good, it was a good book.

Tatum: How do you think this text will affect you?

Q: I just gotta learn from the mistakes they made.... If I do that, maybe it will make me better before I go out and make the mistakes that they made. I already made a mistake [Q had to appear before a judge after stealing a car] and I am trying to learn from it. I just hope that I don't make any more mistakes.

Tatum: Earlier you mentioned you just try to get through a book. Did you feel as if you were just trying to get through this book?

Q: I felt a whole different change when I read this book. It's like when I started reading I thought I was just going to go through it and see what that chapter's about, then go to the next chapter to like glance at it a little bit, but I just kept going away because it was like I was in the story myself.... It was like I was reading and visualizing what was happening. [I] put my feet in his shoes and that's how I kept with the book. I mean I kept reading and reading and reading.

Tatum: Would you recommend that this book be used for classroom instruction in school?

Q: Yeah, if [students] take it serious.

Tatum: What would it take to have you take this book seriously if you were in the classroom and the teacher decided to use this book?

Q: I don't think I would unless the teacher like say we should take this seriously.

Tatum: Is that all you think is required, the teacher just saying you guys need to be serious about this text? And then everyone would snap into place?

Q: Not everybody. But I think that it would help me out. Maybe she is just trying to tell us something.

Tatum: Have you ever heard a teacher tell you that you need to be serious?

Q: I heard it a lot of times, but not for reading books. I heard it like for test, but I ain't never heard them tell us that when reading a book, a class book. All teachers really do is like you are gonna to start a book. We gonna read together, and every chapter we are going to do a test on. I ain't never heard them say we need to take it serious or not.

Although Q was a struggling reader and had observable weaknesses in decoding and oral reading fluency, he completed two books during the first ten weeks of the case study. In his own words, he "just gave [the book] a chance and kept reading ... and the book starting getting good." His reading of Handbook for Boys was very similar to his experience with the first book he completed, "Yo, Little Brother ... " (Davis & Jackson, 1998), a text that provides basic rules of survival for young African American males. When discussing this text, Q shared:

In this book, a lot of things I read had a lot to do with me.... There are a lot of things that I did before that I shouldn't do, and the book helped me a lot.... Sometimes when I read this book, it really made me think 'cause even though I did some of the same things that same day it made me think.... When I was thinking about that I wished I would have had this book earlier so I can know more things about life.... I have been through a lot of stuff during my 16 years of life. It ain't no bad stuff, but it is some stuff that make me remember things in this book.

Q was surprised that he completed this book, the first book that he ever read. When asked why he believed he read this book from beginning to end, he shared:

I don't really know what made me read it, but I was totally involved in what [the authors] were saying. To tell you the truth I read this book in one day.... 'Cause I wasn't going to read it at first ... then I seen street smarts right at the top. I know I know a lot about the street so I just read to see what they was talking about. Then some of the things were true. As I was going along I wanted to stop, but I couldn't. I started it and I didn't go to sleep 'til about 6:00 a.m. That's how into I was, and I didn't really know I could get into a book like that. To tell the truth I forgot I was reading.... This is a good book. It help you out a lot.

Reflecting on Q's experience reading these texts and the case study data, it is not surprising that he had an aversion to reading text. His in-school reading was merely used to complete chapters and take tests. Q also never had an experience with a book that he found to be transformative. During our first session together, I asked Q if he ever read anything that affected his life. He said, "Nope," before adding, "To say the truth, I ain't read a book." African American teenage males will not be motivated to read texts that they find to have little value or under circumstances that feel disconnected to their lives.
 

Creating Motivating Conditions for African American Teenage Boys

Historically, the connections among reading, writing, speaking, and action were salient among African American males. Reading was connected to some form of action (Carmichael, 2003; Forman, 1972; Moses, 1989; Upchurch, 1996). Reading materials benefited African American males when they functioned to help them develop:

1. A healthy psyche in a society where they were treated as second-class citizens
2. A modern-day awareness of the real world
3. A blueprint for striving for equality in a racist and imperialistic society
4. Intellectually
5. Spiritually

As a result of reading, many African American males were moved to act on some platform―the pulpit, the press, or some community forum. In some cases, it led them to act on their own lives. Unfortunately, the historical relationships between African American males and text are overlooked when trying to motivate these young men to read text. This is true albeit many African American teenage males continue to wrestle with self-identification in the United States.

Many African American teenage boys are not motivated to read materials removed from an action orientation, i.e., being, doing, seeing, or thinking differently as a result of reading. Because of the emphasis on test scores across the nation, reading for action is something imagined or postponed for some time in the future. The future never materializes for many of these young men because they are unable to, are unwilling to, or lack the understanding of the need to navigate through schooling. Many of them surrender their life's chances before they get to know their life's choices (Tatum, 2005).
 

Five Proposed Solutions

Excerpts from Q's interview transcript suggest that he was suffering from inactivist-literacy development. Before reading Handbook for Boys and "Yo, Little Brother ..., " he had never read a book that affected his life. These two texts led him to reconsider some of the decisions he was used to making. The readings led him to act on his own life. For example, he enrolled himself in an alternative high school after sitting out of school for three months.

So, how do we motivate African American teenage boys to read text? Here are five proposed solutions:

1. Select text that will afford connections. The connections can be personal, social, or cultural.
2. Provide choice. Identify a menu of texts, and give these teenage males the opportunity to give the text a chance. They may be surprised at the power that text holds.
3. Take the text seriously. Q painfully illustrated that when reading is about completing chapters and taking tests, many African American young men will be robbed of rich and provocative experiences with text.
4. Involve the voices of African American teenage males. These young men are rich data sources. They can provide insights into the characteristics and types of texts they find motivating. After all, they are the ones who are being motivated.
5. Select texts that function as roadmap texts. As many African American teenage boys are mired in negative social conditions, it is incumbent upon educators to identify texts that can provide these young men with a roadmap that helps them answer the questions "Who am I?" and "What can I become?" Essentially, these young men are trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. What is more motivating than having these young men read texts to help them answer that question? The Qs of the world deserve nothing less.

Historical orientations of African American male reading practices and contemporary voices of African American teenage boys inform us that teachers must discuss texts with African American male students in ways that lead toward a rich, optimal experience for these young men. Unfortunately, many African American teenage males are having negative experiences in schools and do not encounter texts that they find valuable. We increase our chances of motivating these young men to read by making informed text selections that will help to inform their lives.
 

References

Carmichael, S. (2003). Ready for revolution: The life and struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner.

Davis, A., & Jackson, J. (1998). "Yo, little brother ... ": Basic rules of survival for young African American males. Chicago: African American Images.

Forman, J. (1972). The making of black revolutionaries. New York: Macmillan.

Moses, W. J. (1989). Alexander Crummell: A study of civilization and discontent. New York: Oxford University Press.

Myers, W. D. (2002). Handbook for boys: A novel. New York: HarperTrophy.

Tatum, A. W. (2005). Teaching reading to black adolescent males: Closing the achievement gap. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Upchurch, C. (1996). Convicted in the womb: One man's journey from prisoner to peacemaker. New York: Bantam Books.

Alfred Tatum is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. In his first teaching job, he taught eighth graders in a school on the South Side of Chicago, where he remained for five years. Dr. Tatum's research is concentrated in three areas: adolescent literacy, teacher professional development, and the literacy development of African American males. He is the author of Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap, published by Stenhouse, and has written a number of other publications about literacy. He can be contacted at atatum@niu.edu.

Return to top