in literary achievement
encourage forms of masculinity
that include value of literacy success
Oftentimes, masculinity is thought of as one hard and fast trait. The majority of members in a certain culture have one perception of how masculinity is defined and do not consider any others.
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Hegemonic masculinity is the dominant form of masculinity in any one culture. As a result of this definition, its existence allows for an acknowledgement of other forms of masculinity, which do exist despite their subservience. More information on this concept can be found here.
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In relation to reading and boys in our classroom, the goal is quite simple: let them know that there is more than one definition of masculinity, and many of those definitions value literacy success.
Despite the seemingly overwhelming nature of this topic, there are many steps you can take to encourage a variety of masculinities in your classroom.
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To begin, it is helpful to educate yourself on the topic of manhood and masculinity in order to better communicate it to your students. Some resources to assist in this learning include the video above and this book.
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More specifically, a great lesson plan on masculinity for adolescents can be found here. As the article mentions, the plan should be adapted to fit your students and their needs, but serves as a good starting point. While this lesson plan is clearly targeted towards boys and masculinity, it is also a valuable lesson for girls to become more open-minded about their expectations for their male peers.
Finally, as a concrete connection to reading and language arts, this piece can give us hope that there are forms of masculinity that value literary success. If we provide our male students with the opportunity to explore multiple masculinities, their possibility of improving their literary achievement grows exponentially.
