Purrrrusing Ralph Fletcher

In an effort to promote conversations around literacy in our district, our literacy coach was able to arrange for the visit of Ralph Fletcher at our district workshop and for a day long writer's workshop with the kids in our school. Along with many fictional works, Ralph Fletcher has written many books for teachers on writing conferences and one focused particularly on bridging the gender gap for males entitled, "Boy Writers".

At first I did just as he noted I would, I denied that there was such a problem and took offense at the suggestion that I would have to take away from the girls to give to the boys. Of course this is not the case at all. He offers great suggestions to improve our curriculum, teaching styles, and environments in order to make them a bit more boy friendly. He also brought up some issues that I did not realize I had.

I found myself slightly embarrassed when he mentioned our bias against poor handwriting. I was mumbling to myself about how ridiculous this was until he wove in two paragraphs of handwriting within the rest of the typed text. I didn't mind the neatly scripted letters complete with perfectly curved loops, but the chicken scratch that followed it literally twisted my face into a scowl. I thought, "God, why can't they just type it so I don't have to try to figure it out." I fear that I discriminate against answers based on this repulsion of the handwriting. This is certainly an issue when it comes to the gender gap. According to his research, males are proven to have less control over their fine motor skills. So I marched into school the very next day and started investigating. I asked the father of one of the worst offenders whether he had noticed decent penmanship at home or what circumstances affected it, and low and behold, he mentioned that unlike his daughters, his son's handwriting had always been atrocious. So we started chatting about the brain research and we agreed to start making some allowances for the poor writing and that we would start helping him to find alternative ways of scribing his assignments. We might have to rely a bit more on the computer, but he obviously wasn't doing it on purpose, and it was obviously going to remain a problem for him. I never knowingly scored him harder or wrongly, but his handwriting was having an affect on the way I even approached his assignments. I was saving them for last or viewing them with irritation. I had not even realized it.

Ralph Fletcher brings up several other points that should be taken into consideration, including the use of violence and styles of boy writing. Often, female teachers are put off by the very topics that excite the male writers. It was mentioned that teachers might want to work in graphic novels to engage them as well as allowing more freedom in the writing topic selection. I was most impressed with his comparison to more classic writers such as Shakespeare and Hemingway. Truly, they wrote for the masses with violent descriptions of war and often crass humor.

So I took a great deal from the book. It really made me consider my own biases, however unintentional. I look forward to meeting him in person and getting some time to practice his techniques. I will post more after his visit.