Newswise — A new book by a University of Illinois at Chicago reading expert suggests that more powerful teaching strategies are needed to help address the literacy crisis among African American male adolescents.
Alfred Tatum, associate professor literacy, language and culture, whose research focuses on reading and black males, proposes a solution that could change the way reading and writing are taught to young African American men.
In "Reading for Their Life: (Re)building the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males" (Heinemann 2009), Tatum makes the case for textual lineages -- connecting black boys to texts that pay attention to their lives -- as a way to help improve both their reading and writing achievement.
When it comes to providing high-quality literacy education, it's not only important how well African American adolescent males read, but what they read, Tatum says.
He says that because African American adolescent males face their own unique challenges, using books in the classroom that better reflect their identities can keep them engaged and help get them beyond some of the limitations that impede their academic development -- like exposure to violence, poverty and fatherless households.
The book includes information on teaching literacy to African American males, as well as stories and poems by Tatum and other authors like W.E.B. Du Bois, Haki Madhubuti and Richard Wright as examples of meaningful texts for black readers.
Tatum argues that teachers will continue to struggle connecting with young black readers unless the young men are drawn in by texts that are appealing and go beyond the perpetual stereotypes about black boys.
"African American males continue to underperform in school as they wait for educators to get it right," writes Tatum. "We must find ways to get with African American adolescent males in schools as opposed to getting on them."
Tatum is the author of the Joseph Britton Award-winning "Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap" (Stenhouse Publishers 2005). He is director of the UIC Reading Clinic, founder of the African American Adolescent Male Summer Literacy Institute at UIC and a former middle-school teacher and reading specialist.
For more information about UIC, please visit www.uic.edu
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