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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Books for boys
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I flew up to New York this past weekend and on my flight back to Atlanta I sat next to a teenage boy reading “Heart of Darkness.”
When I asked if the Joseph Conrad novella was a school assignment he shook his head no. “I wish we could read this instead of all that chick-lit stuff,” he said.
That got me thinking about several national studies showing boys are more likely to fail reading and writing classes than girls.
I’ve visited English classes and noticed how boys would rather read about Shakespeare’s Julius Caeser than the doomed lovers of Romeo and Juliet. Knowing what types of books boys like, what if for every book students read by Jane Austen teachers followed with a novel by Mark Twain?
What can schools do to get more boys interested in reading?
