Boys Gender and Schooling > Issues for schools > Lifting literacies >

What counts as literacy at school?

What happens in your classroom? Does an understanding of popular masculinities and femininities affect your expectations of students and their responses? Use the following questions to begin a critical examination of your classroom literacy practices:

What typical classroom activities are your students expected to do?
What are they asked to talk about?
What are they asked to read about?
How are they expected to participate and contribute to the lesson?
Could some activities be problematic for some boys to engage with?
Are they asked to reveal personal feelings or experiences?
Could some activities be reconstructed to avoid problems for some boys?
If they were reconstructed, would that disadvantage other boys or girls?
Can classroom literacy practices be broadened so that a wider group of students is engaged?
What language practices do boys engage with outside of school?
How do these match the text choices and activities of classrooms?
What do you think counts as literacy at school?

Literacies at school and beyond

Try this exercise:

List a range of literacies you would not see as being 'school-based'.
List a range of literacies that many boys are 'good' at.
Do the lists overlap?
How are the literacies popular with some boys different from what counts as literacy in your classroom?
Can these understandings inform your school's work on boys' literacy?

What counts as literacy at school new window 35k ? new window considers the mismatch between literacies at school and beyond for some boys.

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