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Morphing Literacy: Boys Reshaping Their School-Based Literacy Practices 452

Boys resist many school-based practices by transforming

Morphing Literacy

Heather A. Blair Kathy Sanford

the assigned literacy work.

During a staffroom conversation, a middle school teacher commented, “There aren’t really any gender issues for boys.” After a pause, we asked, “What about literacy?” He acknowledged that indeed boys struggle with literacy, as is often reported in public media. That brief exchange reminded us of how issues of literacy for boys are sometimes glossed over in schools, and our concern led us to embark upon a two-year study in elementary and middle school classrooms, exploring the questions, “What about literacy for boys?” and “What is literacy for boys?” The focus of this two-year ethnographic case study research has been an attempt to understand what boys’ literacy looks like and how it may be different from the traditional notions of school literacy. Morphing is the term we use to describe the distinct characteristics of boys’ practices and behaviors with respect to literacy in the classroom, in hallways, and on the playground. Boys frequently use morphing in their play—with PlayStations, computer games, collector cards, BeyBlades, Bionicals—to describe the transformation of one form or character to another. The term, derived from metamorphosis, is most often used in connection with visual and technology-based activities, and describes, we believe, a new generation of literacy practices.

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There are numerous terms for literacy in our society, including school literacy, family literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, technological literacy, and multiple literacies. Despite many new understandings, the term literacy still widely refers to reading and writing achievement in the eyes of many teachers. Although the conceptualization of literacy in the professional literature has changed over the years (Willis, 1997), and there have been major shifts from “literacy as skill” and “literacy as school knowledge” to “literacy as a social-cultural construct,” current definitions of literacy remain in flux. Alloway and Gilbert (1997), for ex-

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ample, remind us that “what it means to be ‘literate’ is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated as we become increasingly affected by technological and informational change” (p. 51). For the purposes of this study, we adopted a definition of literacy that involves a “complex set of abilities to understand and use the dominant symbol systems of a culture for personal and community development” (Centre for Literacy of Quebec, 2003). The need and demand for these abilities vary in different societies. In a technological society such as ours, “the concept is expanding to include the media and electronic text in addition to alphabets and numbers.”

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In early June, students in a sixthgrade class were given their final language arts project for the year. The teacher asked them to complete several cartoon assignments requiring experimentation with various perspectives and angles. They were to create cartoons, including a bird’s-eye view perception, a greeting card (for Father’s Day), and a four-frame cartoon using dialogue. Although the teacher was uncertain about the success of the project, it was obvious from watching the students work that they found it engaging. One boy commented: Yeah, I made up this character for all of my comics. The others are on the bulletin board if you want to look! It’s a crazy alien that’s always doing stupid stuff, like here, he runs into a tree ’cause he doesn’t know what it is, then he changes into a flying creature to get out.

Several of the boys, who in the past had not completed assignments, were working intensely creating characters that reappeared in several different cartoons. Their illustrations were precise, detailed, and neat. Their characters were unique and created by the students themselves, as opposed to adapted from existing characters. The boys’ cartoons were often futuristic, based on fantastic characters doing impossible things during which they often got into trouble, hurt themselves or wrecked something. They used humor in their work, and often turned it on themselves and the difficulties in which they found themselves. They worked in clusters or pairs, checked each other’s work regularly, made suggestions, and took ideas from each other, although their assignments were individually completed. As these boys talked about their cartoons, it struck us that their interactions were typical of how we think of boys. Yet it is exactly these interactions that are overlooked in recognizing what literacy is for many boys in classrooms and how gender influences the literacies taken up by boys.

GROWING AWARENESS OF THE INFLUENCE OF GENDER Educators in English-speaking countries have recently been raising questions about the nature of schooling for boys (Francis, 2000; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998; Hall & Coles, 2001; Kenway & Willis, 1998; Phillips, 1998). Educational research in Great Britain has indicated concerns for boys in educational settings; for example, boys don’t view education positively, don’t like to read, and often don’t read very well. In addition, a growing percentage of boys are “failing” at school (Millard, 1997). Phillips (1998) observed that British boys faced many social and academic pressures. She suggested

that there are few acceptable gender positions for males in general and that boys are expected to be tough, competitive, and independent. Societal expectations of boys direct them to be responsive in particular ways, such as being loud, witty/mocking,

The boys in our study morph (adapt and reshape) their school literacy activities and transform the nature of these activities. individualistic, and self-fulfilling. Addressing the “silly” construction of masculinity, Francis (2000, p. 118) observes, “[B]oys’ messing about, horseplay, verbal banter and abuse, physicality, humor, and ‘cheeking the teacher’ continues to predominate boys’ behaviour.” These behaviors are viewed as interfering with school literacy success, and they skew teachers’ perceptions of boys’ abilities and willingness to engage in literacy texts. Until recently, the research studies on boys and literacy have been primarily quantitative in nature and have provided statistical analysis of achievement scores. These studies report that boys don’t perform as well as girls on tests of literacy and have fueled debate in the media and in educational circles as to boys’ future success. These issues have been taken up by the public press and are causing concerns in the eyes of parents and teachers. Headlines in North American newspapers over the past few years, such as “Boys and Literacy: We Can Do Better” (1999), “The Trouble with Boys” (2000), and “Gender Gap Persists in Teenagers’ Writing Skill” (Sokoloff, 2003), demonstrate that growing concern. Hall and Coles (2001) proposed that this debate is framed to suggest that

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In this article, we discuss the morphing of literacy, what we observe boys doing in relation to academic and life literacy practices, and how they take up new generations of literacy practices based on their interests, strengths, and preferences. The boys in our study morph (adapt and reshape) their school literacy activities and transform the nature of these activities. They do this in many ways: by using characters from their out-of-school literacies to match their interests, by livening up the activity, by changing and converting the teacher’s instructions, or by including elements of humor and satire in their reading and writing. We explore what literacy means to these early adolescent boys and how the shape of literacy is being morphed by them. It is our contention that these boys are resisting many school-based practices by transforming the assigned literacy work into something more personally fun, engaging, meaningful, humorous, active, and purposeful.

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“boys’ reading is a major national and international problem, and boys themselves are therefore to be seen as deficient and in need of remediation” (p. 287).

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We believe that achievement score research reports are limited in their interpretation, perhaps even biased, and do not tell the full story about boys’ literacy abilities and practices. Smith and Wilhelm (2002) and Newkirk (2002) remind us that all boys are not the same; many do indeed like to read and write and are doing quite well in print-based literacies. These authors also suggest that there is a need for more qualitative information. As teachers, we agree and contend that there is a great deal we don’t know about boys and literacy. We recognize that we need to better understand what literacy looks like for boys and how our classroom practices relate to what boys are and are not doing.

GETTING AT BOYS’ LITERACIES Our ethnographic case study methodology has provided us with a detailed contextual analysis of preadolescent and adolescent boys in six urban and rural classroom settings over a twoyear period. We explored the complexities of boys’ literacy practices using multiple sources, including the boys’ writing and drawing, interviews with the boys, participant observation, and various literacy artifacts. Our data collection has enabled “checking, verifying, testing, probing, and confirming” (Merriam, 1985, p. 208) as we proceeded from the first year of the study to the second, following in a “funnel-like design” that has continually reshaped and focused our research. In the first year, our preliminary findings tended to fit with the common beliefs that schools are failing boys and that, as folk theories contend, “boys will be boys,” in other words, that boys prefer physi-

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cal activity and engagement to reading and writing.. However, this wasn’t necessarily true for all of the boys and didn’t seem to provide us with any depth of understanding about what they were doing. Using an NVivo data-analysis software package, we reviewed the data from the first year, looking for descriptors and themes that would help us better understand our observations. In the second year, we interviewed the boys again, using questions framed from

They were transforming their school literacies into their own life literacies to find personal meaning. the clusters of responses we identified in the first year. We had discussions with them about their computer and technology experiences. We conducted desk and backpack “literacy digs” in which we went through everything in their desks and backpacks in order to better understand the functional nature of their everyday school texts. Although many of these boys struggled to make meaning of their school literacy experiences, they talked enthusiastically about their literacy practices outside of school. Five particular clusters arose repeatedly in their comments about their literacy practices, suggesting that boys need to find personal interest, action, success, fun, and purpose in the work they are assigned. These themes were similar to constructs identified by Smith and Wilhelm (2002). These boys were using what they had learned in school and were morphing it for their own purposes, fulfilling their need to position themselves in the world and support relationships with their peers. They were transforming their school lit-

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eracies into their own life literacies to find personal meaning.

TRANSFORMATION: MORPHING SCHOOL LITERACY PRACTICES Our observations of classroom activities and behaviors reminded us of the complexity of gender as a construct in explaining academic performances and literacies. There is much more going on for early adolescent boys than suggested by test scores. Our observations encouraged us as teachers to resist the common myth that boys don’t engage in literacy activities. Although it may appear that some boys choose to resist classroom activities by ignoring them or defying the teacher, their practices can be viewed as a way of transforming the classroom activities to suit their needs. Throughout the two years we have worked with these boys, we have observed them developing many morphed literacy activities. The clusters of comments provided by the boys relating to personal interest, action, success, fun, and purposeful work have given us insights into how boys morph their school literacies into personally meaningful and engaging work. Three salient themes in relation to their morphing practices have arisen from our analysis of the boys’ interview transcripts, documents and artifacts, and our own observations: • Boys choose to transform time to work on aspects of school literacies that appeal to them. • Boys transform the purpose of the assignment to suit their interests. • Boys transform literacy events into social—cultural capital.

Transforming Time Although classroom expectations and structures work effectively for some boys, they have the potential to

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One sixth-grade classroom teacher demonstrated an understanding of the needs of some boys to prepare for literacy events. This teacher decided that his students would focus

30 minutes) and did so with absolute concentration. As this lesson continued, other adaptations of classroom time by boys became evident. For instance, there was a box of current newspapers located at the back of the classroom; the assignment was to locate international, national, or local news items, read them, summarize them, and paste them into scrapbooks. The boys who engaged in this task worked independently at their desks with a section of newspaper, but some of them struggled to manage their time, becoming distracted by articles and cartoons that

The boys attempted to shape the events in their school day to duplicate the sense of time experienced when they were immersed in tasks they liked. on reading for three weeks of the term, so he allotted one-and-a-half hours a day to reading books that the students selected themselves. On this particular day, the teacher instructed the students to retrieve their books for a 15-minute reading period. Most of the students complied and began reading silently. One boy, in particular, did not. He first walked to the back of the class, browsed in the magazine box, came back to his desk emptyhanded, then went to the sink at the front, got paper towels, and proceeded to clean off his desktop. After finishing this task, he sat at his desk and shuffled papers for a few more minutes. Finally, after about 10 minutes, he picked up his novel and began to read. Soon, the teacher told the class that it was time to move on to the scrapbook activity, but that they could continue reading if they wished. This particular student, and four other boys who took awhile to settle down, chose to continue reading throughout the next activity (about

captured their attention. For some, this resulted in a penalty for failing to meet the teacher’s deadline. In another school, several boys talked about their use of time in computer games. They referred to the multiple levels of computer games that sustain interest and challenge them to compete, often against their own previous best scores or against the computer. One boy stated, “Once I start playing, if I start a file, I just play there for two hours.” Csikszentmihalyi (1990) described this experience as “flow,” a sense of playfulness and being in control where the sense of time gets distorted. This flow, understood by the boys in out-ofschool activities such as computer games and sports, is not often possible in the school structure. For many of the boys in our study, the passing of time was very different out of school than in school. Boys seemed to need more time than was allotted in school to prepare themselves mentally and physically to engage in tasks set by the

teacher, and their engagement was more complete and intense when they could create larger chunks of time for activities. The “flow” they experienced in computer games and sports activities made time seem to pass more quickly than in the highly structured and segmented school environment. The boys attempted to shape the events in their school day to duplicate the sense of time experienced when they were immersed in tasks they liked.

Transforming the Purpose of Literacy Assignments Despite the structured nature of classroom rules and expectations regarding learning and literacy, some boys demonstrated alternative approaches to making meaning from school texts, attempting to transform traditional school literacies into an activity they perceived as more engaging. A sixth-grade social studies class was studying ancient Egypt. The students were given a variety of tasks during the 45-minute class, one of which was to read a page of typewritten notes and highlight five key points in the passage. One boy was engrossed in drawing cartoon figures that resembled Egyptian hieroglyphs. Whenever the teacher directed the class to do an activity, he would comply, but only briefly, before returning to his doodling. He had a difficult time tearing his attention away from his drawing to complete the tasks at the minimal requirements accepted by the teacher. Another boy across the room spent a great deal of the class drawing a detailed illustration covering a full page, shading and elaborating. His assignment was not completed at the end of the class, either. Another boy commented, “I copy stuff from the board, and I finish quickly because I can write really fast, and then I just draw. Then I’m not too bored.” The diversions that transform these

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put others at a disadvantage. Some of the boys in our study seemed to require more time to mentally and physically prepare themselves for classroom activities and to find ways to adapt the structure of the school day to meet their needs. This personal reshaping of class flow can hinder their own academic success; however, classroom environments can be restructured to provide a flexible and supportive place to learn.

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school activities into enjoyable experiences for the boys, however, are not always helpful in their achieving academic success.

members, or fantasy figures that exhibited particular traits of strength or power. One boy commented: You can make your characters any-

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sneaking by all the guards, climbing on rooftops, unlocking doors. He was at the hardest bit of his mission, having to evade the trip wires, but he could get through it. When he came to the safe, his high-tech watch was decoding the safe. Then he got the plans and ran outside, jumped on the helicopter, and flew to London, England.

Morphing Literacy

The out-of-school reading selected by thing you want, not like in the real these boys often supported their perworld where you are limited to just sonal interests, such as sports magaeverything a human can do. . . . Your zines (hockey, golf, skateboarding), character can have all these advencomputer magazines, superhero tures; every character can have their Afterwards, as a reward for working comic books, and other graphic texts. special magic that nobody else has. hard and completing his writing asThese texts were a contrast to their signment, his teacher allowed him to The popular “Animorph” adventure in-school selections, often because play a game on the computer. He series for preadolescents combines they were not seen as appropriate for immediately found the “007” game, print text with visuals and “flip-oin-school reading. In fact, in one playing with considerable energy ramas” that both physically and inschool, the boys were not allowed to and competence for the next 30 tellectually engage readers. The bring their much-loved Pokémon and minutes, pausing only to make a inside cover entices readers with the Yu-Gi-Oh cards to school even comment about the game to friends claim that “Even the book Morphs! though these richly textured literacy sitting on either side of him and to artifacts played a major role in these Flip the pages and check it out!” relate the game actions to those of boys’ out-of-school literate lives. The idea of fun was often connected the James Bond movie. These three They read and reread the many morto the boys’ reading selections and configurations of James Bond phing characters and knew their transformed their reading into an enblended together as he and his transformational histories; similar to joyable activity. These boys frefriends fashioned their school literthe boys in Vasquez’s (2003) study of quently selected visual, humorous, acy activity into something of pera boy’s interactions with Pokémon, and active texts, such as comic sonal value and interest. As Newkirk these boys demonstrated a sophistibooks, Far Side anthologies, and (2002) commented, “Boys almost cated understanding of this genre. more recent series such as Captain never simply reproThere were overlaps duce in their writing in the texts the boys what they have seen The idea of fun was often connected to the boys’ chose to read in and out of school, such reading selections and transformed their reading into in movies or on TV— they transform it, reas fantasy, action an enjoyable activity. combine story lines novels, and inforfrom various media, mation texts, but and regularly place the complexity of Underpants, which offers “Even More themselves and their friends as the their literacy knowledge was often Flip-O-Rama! the world-famous heroes” (p. xviii). not recognized by teachers. cheesy animation techniques that lets you animate the action!” (Pilkey, The boys often found ways to repreRepeatedly, the boys reported interest 1999, back cover). Martino (2001) sent their knowledge in alternative in reading texts that involved action also reported that boys indicate enformats—visually, orally, and with and violence, games/competition, joying humorous and weird stories. gesture. The cartooning assignment challenges, and satire. They chose showed their ability to focus on fantasy and science fiction series When students in a fifth-grade tasks and demonstrated their literacy (Redwall, Lord of the Rings, Harry class were asked to write a short knowledge in diverse ways. When Potter), texts that illustrated sports story from a visual prompt of a given a choice, the boys’ reading acactivities (hockey, soccer), magazines man sneaking around a corner, one tivities focused on finding out inforthat interviewed sports and media boy wrote a story that drew upon mation about personal hobbies and heroic personalities (WWF, skatehis experiences with film and cominterests or on texts that promised boarding), or humorous and often puter games: action, excitement, and humor (both visual texts (Far Side, Mad Maga007 Matt Bond’s Ultra Weapon obvious and subtle). The texts they zine). In terms of school-based activread, including magazines, newsities, their creative writing often In Tokyo, Japan, 007 was at a milipapers, informational books, and Intary base looking for plans. He was featured superhero characters, gang

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ternet sites, showed them ways to succeed—at computer games, skateboard tricks—and ways to connect to their friends and family.

Transforming Literacy Events into Social—Cultural Capital

Literacy is a dominant social practice through which the boys in our study shaped their identities and developed and maintained close personal relationships. Often their literacies gave greater emphasis to taking from the text rather than immersing themselves in it, in order to share information with their friends. The boys’ use of literacies to shape their identities and develop shared interests with friends connected to the themes that emerged from our data, transforming not only their school activities but morphing themselves into what they perceived

Boys are more likely to read material that can be transported into conversations with their friends. to be acceptable masculine beings. Although few boys reported buying their own magazines, perhaps due to their age and limited financial resources, they observed older siblings and parents engaged with these texts and were able to borrow them. One boy reported, “My dad goes to Dot’s Hardware and reads articles about computers and stuff.” Another reported looking for secrets to the games from magazines that can be found in “any kind of store, like Roger’s Video or Winks.” Hall and Coles (2001) argued that magazines form a substantial portion of boys’ reading, highlighting “dense statistical and biographical information” (p. 217) about favorite sports, sporting figures, results, and computer games. These magazine texts tend to be “information rich and analytical

rather than narrative in style; . . . boys’ social interactions around these literacy practices tend to be focused on memorizing facts and figures, rehearsing arguments, comparing and ranking performances and identifying procedures” (p. 218). This kind of material seemed to be used as currency to maintain the boys’ social connections with friends, and by doing so, they continue to create their identities; as Barrs (2000) suggests, reading themselves into being. “Reading,” she said, “is one of the main psychological tools available to us in the process of becoming a person because of the access it gives us to other and wider ways of being” (p. 289). One boy in our study admitted, “I do quite a bit of reading on the Internet, and it shows you all the games, different secrets, and how to break the codes so I can tell my friends.” Another practice that caught our attention was during library book exchange time in a sixth-grade class. The students all entered the openarea library, and five or six boys immediately rushed over to the sports area, quickly picking up a variety of sports books and signing them out on the computer scanner. They then proceeded to cluster around one book, and all read it together, exclaiming over the illustrations and pictures. At a surface level, it appeared that the boys were “goofing off.” Looking further, we saw the boys using this text as a point of connection through which they communicated their interests and expertise to one another. Reading for these boys is a “social practice which is implicated in particular kinds of gender regimes” (Martino, 2001, p. 65). Their communication consisted of exclamations— “Look at that!”—and gestures as they pointed at different parts of the page. They were building their understanding of this text in relation to each

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The social nature of these boys’ literacy practices is central for us as teachers to understand. Sometimes this social imperative is in the form of loud, boisterous comments across the room, and other times it involves clustering around an engaging activity. Their literacy activities involve playful collaboration among clusters of friends (Newkirk, 2002), a camaraderie that Dyson (1993) terms the social work of literacy. Gathering around a computer is a common example. One day at recess, four or five boys from a fifth-grade class asked their teacher if they could stay in and play a computer game rather than go outside. They clustered around the computer on the teacher’s desk. One boy took the controls, and the others coached him, giving him suggestions, words of encouragement, and praise at well-executed moves. Two more boys joined them, and then a couple more, all intently focused on the play on the screen. After a few minutes, the male teacher joined the group, engaging in a conversation with them about the progress of the game and sharing ideas about how best to progress. Alvermann and Heron (2001) and Smith and Wilhelm (2002) also noticed the importance of a social community with which boys can connect. Hall and Cole (2001) talked about how the boys’ “vernacular” literacies are very often focused around Gee’s (2002) concept of an affinity-identity formed “through experiences that are shared within the practices of ‘affinity groups’ ” (Alvermann & Heron, 2001, p. 119). Newkirk (2002) suggests that the literacy practiced by high school boys

is “intensely social—literacies grow out of relationship” (p. x) and that boys are more likely to read material that can be transported into conversations with their friends.

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other, and they were building their understanding of each other in relation to this text. These literacy behaviors appeared very teamlike, reminiscent of sports activities in which the boys gain social capital from both participating in the event and interacting with their teammates. 458

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When they had the opportunity, the boys in our study chose reading selections and writing activities that helped inform their personal interests, feeding their quest for their individual and collective identities and

figuring out how something works, keeping track of sports statistics, or staying connected with their friends. Our elementary and middle school boys reported the necessity of reading while playing video games, “because most of the video games that I have, you have to read what the instructions are, and you follow exactly the instructions or you fail the level.” They read newspapers, “about Napster dying. We have Napster on our computer, so that really got me”; “for entertainment stuff, and if

Their relationships build around information-passing as they engage in activities and shape visions of their future selves. social communities. Often the boys reported choosing texts that connected to events that involved their relatives and friends, such as grandfathers in WWII and fathers in the RCMP. One boy reported a writing event that he undertook for a friend: A couple of months ago I wrote a letter to the Oilers because my friend, he has cancer. He’s still in the hospital. I asked them if they could send him something, and they did. So they wrote me back, and they sent me two pictures, autographed pictures.

He was creating a literacy event to construct a personal relationship between his friend and this famous NHL hockey team. Through creating this meaningful text and having it responded to by the hockey team, he gained a fair degree of recognition and prestige. He built cultural capital among his peers, and particularly with his close friend. One of the most dominant desires of the boys in engaging in literacy activities is the need for purposeful interaction with texts. As Smith and Wilhelm (2002) maintained, readings that boys enjoy have a purpose, whether it is getting information,

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there’s any concert coming”; “what’s on TV”; “I go to the hockey section and the sports section, and I read what’s new in the sports section so I’ll know. That’s where I get all my information.” They read to connect to friends and family: “My older brother, he’s seventeen. He has to read all this stuff from his homework . . . on the computer. We’ll go on the Internet lots and read.” And they read because they know it’s important for their future lives: You have to know how to read and write to go anywhere in life, because if you can’t read anything, you’re not going to get a very good job. And if you can’t write anything, you’re not going to be able to really do anything. You’re not going to be able to have a desk job or anything; you’re going to be working at McDonald’s.

In this boy’s view, literacy was directly connected to going somewhere in life, building something for himself, and becoming someone. He understood the connection between literacy and social-cultural capital. Observations and interviews with the boys have led us to believe that one of the most critical aspects of

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literacy for them is the social-cultural capital gained from the texts they read and share. The camaraderie that develops through a shared newspaper article about a hockey game or a magazine article about the next level of a computer game is important. Their relationships build around information-passing as they engage in activities and shape visions of their future selves. These boys demonstrated for us the many ways by which they continue to morph their literacy practices and led us to consider how we can transform our own teaching practices.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE LITERACY CLASSROOM Our research study, although limited in scope, has pointed to several issues that need further exploration. The connections between out-ofschool literacies and in-school literacies need to be developed and capitalized upon in helping boys to develop literacy skills and understandings. The wide range of texts that are read, written, and talked about among the boys—newspapers, manuals, sports statistics, Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon cards, Internet—can provide scaffolding to further their facility with increasingly complex texts. Alternative “texts” and “literacies,” often dismissed as irrelevant to the agenda of school, can be adopted more readily and meaningfully in classrooms. Additionally, teachers and parents can recognize the complexity of the texts in which boys do engage and acknowledge their already developed set of literacies. Just as factors impacting boys’ literacy are ignored in some classrooms, so are many of the boys ignoring schooling practices that they see as boring, meaningless, and passive. The boys themselves are morphing literacies to suit their purposes and, as our conversations with them

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Clearly, technology and computer literacies have had an impact on

Boys can read, but are selective in what they read. traditional literacy forms and on the expectations, skills, and interests of the boys. The influence of technology, in the form of computer games, Internet searches, and online chat rooms, have shaped the way boys interact with texts and which texts they choose to read. Many boys are transforming their literacy practices to better meet their needs in a demanding and rapidly changing world. We need to offer boys a wide range of diverse texts so that they can make choices and connections between in-school and out-ofschool literacies and broaden their literacy experiences. Our planning can include considerations of relevance and selection to structure purposive interactions with texts.

As literacy educators, it is vital that we increase opportunities for awareness, analysis, and action regarding issues of gender for ourselves and for our students. We need to acknowledge diverse literacy practices and interests in our classrooms and reconsider the types of texts available to us that enable the teaching of literacy. Millard (1997) suggests that boys often prefer reading and writing texts that “emphasize action over personal relationships, excitement over the unfolding character, and humor most of all” (p. 41). These preferences can put boys at odds with texts that are typically chosen for study in schools. A broad range of literacy activities for boys and girls needs to be provided from the time they begin school. We must avoid falling back on essentializing arguments of “poor boys,” “failing schools,” or “boys’ nature” (Epstein, Elwood, Hey, & Maw, 1998), and yet recognize how our students are constrained by the rigidities of their gender roles in school and in society.

Our own awareness of potential sites for stereotyped practices is a critical beginning. Rather than making assumptions about boys’ literacy practices, we need to ask them how they apply literacy strategies to their inschool and out-of-school lives. As our study has revealed, it is through discussions with the boys and observations of their practices that we have begun to understand some of the complex ways in which they engage with texts. It is through their stories and explanations that we have been able, albeit briefly, to enter their lived and fantasized worlds of transformation and morphing. Boys’ performances in literacy—and their participation and enjoyment in school literacy practices—are affected by the ways in which they see themselves constructed. Their resistance to these constructions and their need to reshape their experiences are extremely complex and sensitive issues, but issues that we need to understand to provide greater opportunities for boys’ literacy success.

As well as considering classroom practices and text choices, we need to continually challenge our own existing perceptions of boys’ interests and abilities and prepare teachers to read their classrooms with gendered lenses. Viewing literacy practices as gender performances provides opportunities for adults and children to see these too often invisible ways of reiterating gender norms and to encourage children to “do” gender differently (Dutro, 2003). We need to recognize the distinctly “boylike” flavor of their lives, their humor and interest in action, their hunger to have something happen, their enthusiasm for a big climax (Martino, 2001). The “social work” of literacy should not be overlooked in preparing boys to engage in literacy activities, but rather recognized as building socialcultural capital.

Boys can read, but are selective in what they read; they use reading strategies that they have adopted in school and morphed to make sense of new literacies that appeal to them. As teachers, we need to transform our ideas about literacy to help boys recognize their strengths and move them beyond their own to broader, more relevant literacies. Further research is needed to help us better understand their morphing literacies, critique the arguments that would position them as failing, and remind ourselves that there are multiple definitions of literacy and multiple paths to becoming literate. We need to deepen our understandings of the subjectivity of literacies for boys given the sociocultural configurations from which they emerge, and to consider the implications of this research for girls’ literacies and futures. We need to

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have indicated, are becoming literate in spite of school instruction. It is our contention that boys are engaging in literacy events outside of the classroom that, although not ensuring academic success, may be better preparing them for the world beyond school. The abilities to navigate the Internet, experiment with alternative literacies, and “read” multiple texts simultaneously— morphing their own literacy practices to take up new literacies—will be perhaps more useful workplace skills than the ability to analyze a work of fiction or to write a narrative account. Luke (2002) articulated the urgent need to reconsider school literacies in light of our 21st-century global society and to consider how a broadened definition of literacy would benefit more students in meaningful ways.

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encourage our students to see the multiplicities of perspective and recognize the morphing of their own literacy practices. References 460

Alloway, N., & Gilbert, P. (1997). Boys and literacy: Lessons from Australia. Gender and Education, 9(1), 49–58.

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Alvermann, D., & Heron, A. (2001). Literacy identity work: Playing to learn with popular media. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(2), 118–122. Barrs, M. (2000). Gendered literacy? Language Arts, 77, 287–293. Boys and literacy: We can do better (Editorial). (1999, March 18). Globe and Mail, p. A14. The Centre for Literacy of Quebec. (2003). A working definition: Literacy for the 21st century. Retrieved February 10, 2003, from http://www.nald.ca/province/que/ litcent/litWD.htm Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row. Dutro, E. (2003). “Us boys like to read football and boy stuff”: Reading masculinities, performing boyhood. Journal of Literacy Research, 34, 465–499. Dyson, A. (1993). Social worlds of children learning to write in an urban primary school. New York: Teachers College Press. Epstein, D., Elwood, J., Hey, V., & Maw, J. (Eds.). (1998). Failing boys? Issues in gender and achievement. Buckingham: Open University Press.

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Francis, B. (2000). Girls and achievement: Addressing the classroom issues. London: Routledge/Falmer. Gee, J. (2002). Millennials and bobos: Blue’s clues and Sesame Street: A story for our times. In D. Alvermann (Ed.). Adolescents and literacies in a digital world (pp. 51–67). New York: Peter Lang. Gilbert, R., & Gilbert, P. (1998). Masculinity goes to school. London: Routledge. Hall, C., & Coles, M. (2001). Boys, books, and breaking boundaries: Developing literacy in and out of school. In W. Martino & B. Meyenn (Eds.), What about the boys? Issues of masculinity in schools (pp. 211–221). Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Kenway, J., & Willis, S. (1998). Answering back: Girls, boys, and feminism in schools. London: Routledge. Luke, A. (2002, December). Critical literacy and globalization. Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, Miami, FL. Martino, W. (2001). Boys and reading: Investigating the impact of masculinities on boys’ reading preferences and involvement in literacy. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 24 (1), 61–74. Merriam, S. B. (1985). The case study in educational research: A review of selected literature. Journal of Educational Thought, 19, 204–217. Millard, E. (1997). Differently literate: Gender identity in the construction of the developing reader. Gender and Education, 9 (1), 31–48. Newkirk, T. (2002). Misreading masculinity: Boys, literacy, and popular culture. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Pilkey, D. (1999). Captain Underpants and the invasion of the incredibly naughty cafeteria ladies from outer space (and the subsequent assault of the equally evil lunchroom zombie nerds). Toronto: Scholastic. Smith, M., & Wilhelm, J. (2002). Reading don’t fix no Chevys: Literacy in the lives of young men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Sokoloff, H. (2003, May 28). Gender gap persists in teenagers’ writing skill. National Post, p. A1. The trouble with boys. (2000, August 21). The Guardian, p. 12. Vasquez, V. (2003). What engagement with Pokémon can teach us about learning and literacy. Language Arts, 81, 28–35. Willis, A. I. (1997). Focus on research: Historical considerations. Language Arts, 74(5), 387–397.

Author Biographies Heather A. Blair is associate professor in elementary education at the University of Alberta. Kathy Sanford is assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Victoria.

L ANGUAGE A RTS

NCTE is seeking a new editor of Language Arts. In July 2006, the term of the present editors, Sandy Kaser, Gloria Kauffman, Jean Schroeder, and Kathy Short, will end. Interested persons should send a letter of application to be received no later than September 15, 2004. Letters should include the applicant’s vision for the journal and be accompanied by the applicant’s vita, one sample of published writing, and two letters of general support from appropriate administrators at the applicant’s institution. Do not send books, monographs, or other materials that cannot be easily copied for the Search Committee. Class-

Language Arts,

Phillips, A. (1998, November 13). “It’s just so unfair.” Times Educational Supplement, pp. 14–15.

July 2004

room teachers are both eligible and encouraged to apply. The applicant appointed by the NCTE Executive Committee in November 2004 will effect a transition, preparing for his or her first issue in September 2006. The appointment is for five years. Applications should be addressed to Margaret Chambers, Language Arts Search Committee, NCTE, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096. Questions regarding any aspect of the editorship should be directed to Margaret Chambers, Division Director, Publications: [email protected]; (800) 369-6283, extension 3623.