This chapter is an excerpt from Thomas Newkirk's Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture. Titled "A Big Enough Room," chapter 8 is the author's final look at boys and how they fare in school-based literacy programs.

This chapter is an excerpt from Thomas Newkirk's Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture. Titled "A Big Enough Room," chapter 8 is the author's final look at boys and how they fare in school-based literacy programs. Targeting both reading and writing, Newkirk proposes his visionary outlook for boys and reading by referencing and emphasizing other sections of his book where he explores related topics to boys and literacy: (1) "the 'crisis' in boyhood;" (2) "making sense of the gender gap;" (3) "the case against literacy: a respectful meditation on resistance;" (4) "taste and distaste;" (5) "violence and innocence;" (6) "misreading violence;" and (7) "making way for captain underpants: a chapter in three acts." His vision includes widening the forms of narrative pleasure in school-sanctioned narratives to include what boys are drawn to--jokes, stories, gossip, novels, video games, sports pages, and so forth. Newkirk suggests, too, that cartooning--both the reading and writing of cartoons, should be viewed as "serious business" in the classroom. Additionally, he wants teachers to acknowledge the complexity of 'violence' in reading and writing and encourages teachers to adopt as valid "youth genres." The author argues for obsession with reading where the central characteristic of an obsession is "repetition that to the outsider seems extreme, even nonproductive." And as a final call to a new frontier with boys and literacy, the author challenges school literacy programs to resist narrowness. Teaching with only a reliance on rubrics and writing instruction as test taking sufficiently inhibits students, particularly boys, to become generative thinkers. Newkirk's text is well-supported with examples from the classroom. (author/bebrown)

This book excerpt is an excellent resource for career-technical and academic teachers interested in gaining insight and troubleshooting problems related to boys and literacy. By presenting research results along with classroom situations, the material will help teachers understand why male students are struggling with school-based literacy.

This book excerpt is an excellent resource for career-technical and academic teachers interested in gaining insight and troubleshooting problems related to boys and literacy. By presenting research results along with classroom situations, the material will help teachers understand why male students are struggling with school-based literacy. Practical advice about ways to get adolescent boys to read and write in school settings is featured. Since the issue of male literacy must be addressed in all educational settings involving boys, this chapter is especially appropriate for career-technical teachers. Additionally, teachers in the Education and Training and the Arts and Communication career fields can share this resource with their students. (jrs)