Engaging Gifted Boys in New Literacies

Gifted Male Readers: Current Understandings and Suggestions for Future Research

“…Freedmon (2003) found similar numbers in her focus group discussions with young male readers, 70% of whom said they preferred physical activities or computer usage to books and that the most important criteria for selecting a book was it being "short" (p. 8). Though an increasing number of researchers and theorists have begun to recognize computer usage and "Web 2.0" interactivity such as blogs, wikis, and social-media engagement as emerging new literacies of great importance (Hébert & Pagnani, 2010), neither students nor educators typically share this understanding and see these activities as legitimate means of reading and writing training worthy of curricular inclusion. Numerous gender researchers have rallied to explain these contrasts and their arguments have often been at odds.…”

“…As to text selection, numerous studies have confirmed that boys and girls (and men and women) do in fact read different genres of text when a choice is available (Hall & Coles, 1999;Millard, 1997;Pirie, 2002). Among the genres preferred by males are nonfiction, science fiction, fantasy, comedy, sports, action, war, and horror (Boraks, Hoffman, & Bauer, 1997;Brozo, 2010;Hébert & Pagnani, 2010;Hopper, 2005). Females, on the other hand, are much more likely to consume traditional storied fiction, although one might suspect that the recent popularity of the Harry Potter and Twilight series has blurred the gender lines in a meaningful way.…”

“…Little research has been conducted analyzing the reading preferences of gifted males and that which has been conducted has seemingly suggested that little difference in genre choice exists between them and their nongifted male peers (Cavazos-Kottke, 2006;Hébert & Pagnani, 2010 a language arts classroom? Finally, how do these behaviors and preferences differ from those of male readers of average ability, if at all?…”

Charlie’s Words

“…In Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices (2006), Fletcher identified “sports commentary” as a genre of high interest to boys when interviewed in Education Week by Michael F. Shaughnessy (2006), Consulting Editor for Gifted Education International . Hébert and Pagnani (2010) highlighted Tony Hawk’s and Sean Mortimer’s (2000) biography titled Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder , as a popular book for many boys. Evidence suggests that journals provide gifted adolescent male student-athletes with writing (and reading) opportunities in the high-interest area of sports while offering choice of writing assignments.…”