Full Description
Your game plan for getting boys on the path to higher achievement
You've seen it in your school: boys struggling to master basic literacy skills, sitting outside the principal's office, collecting labels like "hyperactive," getting failing grades. Checked out, kicked out, or dropped out, they're benched when they should be scoring goals on the academic playing field.
As a school leader, Kelley King has walked the talk: she successfully led her own staff to close the gender gap in reading and writing in just one year. In her step-by-step, research-based leadership plan for jump-starting boys' achievement, she shares:
Critical insight into the brain-based differences between boys and girls
First-hand leadership and classroom experiences
Ready-to-use activities and resources for leading a successful gap-closing initiative
With tips, anecdotes, and more, Writing the Playbook provides educators in all roles with a blueprint for creating schools where boys (and girls!) thrive.
"Finally, some practical advice from an experienced educator on how to make boys into successful students. King's credentials—mother of both a son and daughter as well as a principal who successfully addressed gender gaps at her school—are unbeatable."
—Richard Whitmire, Author of Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That's Leaving Them Behind
"Kelley King is both impassioned and level-headed, and she starts a conversation that we desperately need to have in our country."
—Michael Kimmel, Author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology
"This is a highly practical and highly relevant book. Two thumbs up!"
—Eric Jensen, Author of Teaching with the Brain in Mind
Contents
Foreword by Michael Gurian
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1. Making the Call: Is There Really a Boy Crisis?
Final Buzzer
2. Getting Your Head in the Game: "Need-to-Knows" about the Male Brain
Laying the Groundwork
Why Do These Sex Differences Exist?
Our Beginnings
Does That Mean That Our Abilities Aare Fixed?
The Male Brain 101
Is There Such a Thing as an "Extreme Male Brain"?
The Male Adolescent Brain
It's Nature AND Nuture
The Final Buzzer
3. Chalk Talk: A Game Plan for Moving Your Team down the Field
School Climate and Culture - What's the Difference?
Activities for Your Professional Learning Communities
Got Data?
Getting Teacher Buy-In
SMART Goals
Developing an Action Plan
School Improvement and Teacher Growth
Developing a Yearlong Professional Development Plan
The Final Buzzer
4. Leveling the Playing Field: School Policies and Procedures That Don't Squeeze Boys out
Expectations and the Stereotype Threat
Discipline
Time, Place, and Manner
Grades and Homework
Banning Aggression Themes
The Final Buzzer
5. Touching Base: Relationship-Building to Guide Boys on Their Journey
The Social-Emotional Lives of Boys
Forging Positive Relationships With Boys
Male Mentoring and Role Models
The Final Buzzer
6. The Ground Game: Setting up Classrooms That Help Boys Succeed
Physical Arrangement of the Classroom
Classroom Procedures
The Final Buzzer
7. Hitting It out of the Park: Game-Winning Instructional Strategies for Boys (and Girls!)
Lecture Strategies
Movement Strategies
Student Interests Strategies
Real-World Learning Strategies
Student Choice Strategies
Visual-Spatial Strategies
Technology Strategies
Competition Strategies
Single-Gender Grouping Strategies
Music Strategies
Test Preparation Strategies
Test Administration Strategies
The Final Buzzer
Afterword
Sticky Teaching Graphic
References
Index
