Advancing the literacy development of African American males in contexts that are characteristically urban has been a challenging task for educators across the P-12 spectrum. Frames that have been traditionally used to improve the reading achievement of African American males have not reversed trends in reading achievement that find many of these young males underperforming on traditional reading assessments. The purpose of this article is to reframe the discussion on the literacy development of African American males based on a review of several bodies of literature. Attention is given to evidence-based reading research: three historical frames of the literacy development of African American males and a literacy model for advancing the literacy development of African American male youth in urban schools. Finally, a research agenda is proposed for advancing the literacy development of African American male youth with the goal of offering guidance to teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and policymakers.
In this article, Alfred Tatum argues that the current framing of the adolescent literacy crisis fails to take into account the in-school and out-of-school challenges confronting many African American male adolescents today, particularly those growing up in high-poverty communities. Using the metaphor of literacy instruction as a human body, he argues that in the absence of sound theory about the importance of texts for African American male adolescents, even the best instructional methods will fall flat, like a body without a head. He offers a more anatomically complete model in which instructional methods are governed by theories about how literacy can help young men of color respond to their immediate contexts, and in which professional development gives legs to these methods by preparing teachers to engage all students. Finally, in a case study of one Chicago youth, Tatum illustrates both the power that relevant texts can hold for young men of color and the missed opportunities that result when students do not encounter such texts in their schools.
Drawing from a sociohistorical understanding of the roles of texts for African American males and data from a recent survey of teens' meaningful experiences with texts, the author provides a general understanding of the roles of texts among African American males and African American male adolescents' meaningful relationships with texts. These understandings are necessary for re-orienting these young males toward meaningful literacy exchanges with fiction and nonfiction texts with socioemotional and cognitive orientations. Implications for shaping more responsive textual pathways for struggling and non-struggling readers are offered.
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