Are we socialising boys to be poor writers?

[Campaspe]

Found this blog piece and thought it very interesting and insightful.

What do others think?

thequirkyteacher.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/are-we-socialising-boys-to-be-poor-writers/

Sorry that was to Inmy

You don't need to be a novelist to use story writing skills. Lawyers and management consultants need to craft persuasive stories every day!

Not everybody wants to be or will be a lawyer or management consultant.

As adults not everyone will use every skill piece of knowledge they learnt in school but at age 8-11 do you really know which you will need? It's a bit like saying I'll never need geometry when I'm older so let's not bother with that.

If we think of story telling as simply taking information and presenting them in an appropriate narrative, then it's a great skill to have.

Personally (as an ex-lawyer and a writer), I don't think the primary curriculum does a very good job of building these skills, but that's a whole other discussion.

But story writing seems to take up a big chunk of the writing done in primary. There seems to be a huge emphasis on it.Look at this thread. Less worthy literature leads to less worthy writing which equals poor writing.

We could just as easily substitute poetry, journalistic reports, advertisements, recounts, reviews etc etc etc

It's interesting as persuasive writing,letter writing etc seems to be a hasty add on at the end of primary(or it has with my DC). I wonder if one of my reluctant writers is now doing so much better because of a bigger variety in the type of writing he is doing in year 6.

That is most definitely the choice of your child's school not standrd practice

I absolutely don't think this blog is criticising boys, but the way SOME of them are brought up & taught. And in my entirely random & unscientific observations, boys who are lost to screens at an early age are often lost to books & are weak writers. Of course there are exceptions, and this probably applies to girls as well. For whatever reason though, they seem less lost to the screen world than boys - not sure why, or if this is just personal to me.

And, is Diary Of A Wimpy Kid actually going to teach poor writing & reading? What about the Tom Gates series?

'Is Diary of a Wimpy Kid actually going to teach poor writing & reading? What about the Tom Gates series?"

I wouldn't say these books teach poor reading but they do nothing to encourage good writing. I wonder how many parents buy these books for their children without actually looking past the front cover? The main problem is many boys ONLY read books like this.

This American author/teacher explains some of the reasons why teaching narrative writing is important for children;
ulleseit.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/should-we-teach-narrative-writing/

The first response to the blog also asks how can we analyse other pieces of writing if we can't write ourselves?

TheWordFactory - I think imparting story telling and story writing skills in the context of a large class is very difficult indeed.

IMO parents who help their DC recount their experiences accurately and engagingly add huge amounts of story-telling-ability value. Those sorts of parents are often helping their DC with such skills every day...

But if there wasn't Wimpy Kid and Tom Gates many of these kids wouldn't be reading anything at all.

Often they can serve as a bridge.They did with one of mine.

Reading Wimpy Kid doesn't mean you are hindered from reading anything else.I took my kids to a cheap Wimpy Kid thing at the theatre which had Jeff Kinney on the big screen showing them how to draw and explaining his writing process and inspiring them to have a go. They loved it and there were as many girls there as boys.They sold out of the books on sale very quickly,it was a joy to see kids so excited about buying books.

Interestingly it was only reported this week that kids are reading more.I suspect Wimpy Kid played it's part.

So it's not that boys don't read - clearly they do. The issue seems to be that the things they choose to read are not valued by the current education system.
Surely it's easier to change the curriculum than to change boys?
How about valuing the narrative skills of writing detailed manual instructions, or the imagination needed to construct complex worlds in Minecraft? They are both stories of sorts...

I've been running a reading cafe and there are boys in the group who tell me they never read outside of school and that they don't own any books. All the girls were able to produce books they were reading at home but only two of the boys (even though there was a reward for bringing along a book) so yes there are boys who don't choose to read.

In your example, those are boys who don't choose to read books but did you ask them whether they read anything else that isn't a book?
My DS is currently reading a map, for example.

Yes I did ... They don't

Then why did they come to a reading cafe? Seems like they want to read.

They like doughnuts and parents like an hour free child care

My Ds only plays computer games at friends houses, he has no access to them at home. He is nearly 8 and struggles with writing. His fine motor skills are poor & so writing requires huge effort. He reads but again it requires huge mental effort as it is not fluent enough yet. He is simply very immature developmentally compared to my DD. So its got nothing to do with computer games/football here (he hates football!) & definitely not due to lack of social interaction as he talks non-stop! He will get there in his own time:) What is absolutely crucial imo is that late developers like my son maintain a healthy sense of self-esteem. I personally think they are pushed into formal learning far too early and ime (I taught for many years pre kids) this was the main reason for boys failing & then hating writing.

Articles/Cunningham-What Reading Does for the Mind.pdf

InMySpareTime Your posts really resonate. I have read posts on here about DC's knowing how to please the teacher, knowing what the mark scheme requires. DS's recent controlled assessment was Manga based and laid 3 traps for the reader. I don't think he will be scoring highly on the mark scheme. Is the whole point of the exercise merely about knowing how to achieve high marks on the mark scheme? Is it the mark scheme that is wrong rather than DS?

plasticine that was my experience with my first ds too: he didn't have a games console when he was struggling with the beginnings of writing!

I think "pleasing the teacher" is a bit misleading ...if the assignment is to write in a specific genre failure to do so would result in a poor mark whether you are male or female.
I've had girls who regardless of the type of writing slip back into the "once upon a time" mode ... Not good if the teacher has asked for a newspaper article or a report on a science experiment.

Rotaryairer the who point of the exercise is to demonstrate that you can write for different purposes and for different audiences.
Writing for a scientific journal is different to writing for the good food guide of the local newspaper is different to writing a letter to you MP persuading them not to frack on the village green is different to writing a thank you letter to aunty Philomena for the lovely Christmas jumper is different to sending your friend an email is different to writing on your blog.