Reprinted from Atlas Leadingedge

Motivating African American Teenage Boys to Read Text


Alfred Tatum's newest article clearly reviews an important piece of his presentation last week at the Principals' Institute. Tatum uses his experience with an adolescent Black male, Q, to help elicit what interests African American Teenage Boys in reading.
The article is fascinating and revealing. I have quoted Tatum's Five Proposed Solutions.




Motivating African American Teenage Boys to Read Text
by Alfred W. Tatum, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb
Five Proposed Solutions

I end with five proposed solutions for motivating African American teenage boys to read text. They are:

Select text that will afford connections. The connections can be personal, social, or cultural.
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.
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.
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.
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.