When I taught middle school, whenever the subject came to creative writing (anything from poetry to stories), the majority of girls in the class would sit up straighter and give me their full attention (for five minutes anyway) and the majority of boys would slump down in their seats, groan, and begin to doodle. When I tutored, most of my students were boys as well, and the biggest issue they had trouble with was writing.

This isn’t news. There have been various studies about boys excelling in math and sciences and girls in literature and writing. However, I don’t think this is something that has to remain constant. One thing I noticed was that boys perked up when I gave them free reign to create metaphors and similes. If they wanted to compare a character’s smile to a beaver’s, that was fine by me. If they wanted to write about a town with noxious smells–as long as they described the surroundings and were creative–I went with it. When we studied onomatopoeia, I even let them write sentences with vomit and gas sounds. The result? The same boys whose shoulders sagged at the mention of writing activities became enthused to compose their own stories–illustrations and all.

Persuasive essays were another area that got boys writing. They loved that they could argue. They loved that they could choose topics to argue about. It didn’t phase them that there was a format to follow, that there was a “correct” way to present their points. They embraced all of it–even the students who were the most reluctant writers in the class. They were eager to look up facts to support their points, didn’t moan when they had to revise and find additional information. Students, who in the past, saw me for extra help to string three sentences together, were composing paragraphs with only an outline to guide them.

Too often, boys are told to verbalize their thoughts, but when they do, we balk at the way they do it. We assume they’re trying to be crude or rude or inappropriate (yes, sometimes they are), rather than just taking the words for what they are: an expression of themselves and their creativity. If we loosened the reigns and changed what we consider “appropriate”, embraced the silly, the next time a writing lesson is assigned, more boys will sit up straighter.

Related posts:

1. Connect with Margie Gelbwasser: Excuses
2. Connect with Margie Gelbwasser: Getting Hooked
3. Connect with Margie Gelbwasser: Boy Books
4. Connect With Margie Gelbwasser: Writing Outside The Box
5. Connect with Margie Gelbwasser: Keeping Writing Fun