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.

From the latest issue of Ebony Magazine
Saving Black Boys: Is Single-Sex Education The Answer?

Here is a list of predominantly African-American, all-boys schools, compiled by the National Association of Single-Sex Schools and independent research:

The Benjamin E. Mays Male Academy, Detroit, Mich.
The Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Seattle, Wash.
The Young Men’s Leadership School at Fitzsimons High School, Philadelphia, Pa.
The Lincoln Elementary School in Toledo, Ohio
The Bedford-Stuyvesant Preparatory Charter School for Excellence in New York, N.Y.
The Eagle Academy for Young Men in Bronx, N.Y.
The Urban Assembly Academy For History and Citizenship for Young Men in Bronx, N.Y.
Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men in Chicago
The Charles Drew Elementary School in Gary, Ind.
Hales Franciscan High School in Chicago
St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, La.
Capital High School for Boys in East Baton Rouge, La.
Dayton Academy for Boys in Dayton, Ohio

We've finished two of the four sessions on Young Black Males. Below are some statistics about boys which support the all male The Eagle Academy. The statistics about Black males continue to be shocking and remind us why we need to use this series as the impetus for specific action. Click on the pages below for a larger readable image.