Boys, Books, and Boredom: A Case of Three High School Boys and Their Encounters With Literacy

We examine the literacy gender gap through the documented experiences of three representative high schools boys and their teacher—how they view themselves as students, their dispositions toward schooling and education, and their engagement with literacy— as a way to further understand how literacy teachers can better work with them. We offer a case study analysis of the boys’ struggles with academic reading in high school reading classes aimed at addressing the needs of young people who read far below grade level in school. We highlight the multifaceted, complex nature of “struggle” or “reluctance” toward academic reading and argue that no one single factor drives or maintains reluctance. Instead, we demonstrate how cycles of narrow definitions of literacy and what it means to be literate, negative experiences with teachers, frustration with academic and social structures in schools, and difficult relationships at home all work together to perpetuate struggles with reading

“I was bitten by a scorpion”: Reading in and out of school in a refugee’s life

A refugee student’s literacy practices are examined. Discrepancies between his in-school and out-of-school literacies highlight the tension he and his teachers experience. The purpose of this study is to examine a high school boy’s experiences in an ELL language acquisition program, at home, and in the work place. Within these contexts, we explore Hayder’s participation in literacy events in light of his identity as a Yezidi Kurdish refugee in and out of school. Our study indicates that reading instruction works for students such as Hayder when certain support structures are in place. Teaching “styles” matter, as does the content of the reading instruction. We found that although teachers attempted to connect Hayder’s literacy learning to the outside work world, Hayder thought that there was little in school that could help him earn a living to support his parents and younger siblings