Helpful Resources
Books of Interest
Obviously, none of these lists is exhaustive, but each contains books I have found to be useful. For any who think a book should have been included and wasn’t, please send me your suggestions.
Books for Teachers
Some of these books are either English or Australian and you may be able to locate them by going to the Web sites for Amazon-England or Amazon-Canada.
Askew, Sue and Ross, Carol (1988). Boys Don’t Cry: Boys and Sexism in Education. Buckingham, UK and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.
Bleach, Kevan (1998). Raising Boys’ Achievement in Schools. Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, UK: Trentham Books.
Grossman, Herbert and Grossman, Suzanne H. (1994). Gender Issues in Education. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Hawkes, Tim (2001). Boy oh Boy: How to Raise and Educate Boys. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Pearson.
James, Abigail Norfleet (2008). Teaching the Male Brain: How Boys Think, Feel, and Learn in School. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Neall, Lucinda (2002). Bringing the Best Out in Boys: Communication Strategies for Teachers. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Hawthorn Press.
Sax, Leonard (2007). Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Men. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Sax, Leonard (2005). Why Gender Matters. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Skelton, Christine (2001). Schooling the Boys: Masculinities and Primary Education. Buckingham, UK and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.
West, Peter (2002. What IS the matter with boys? Marricksville NSW, Australia: Choice Books.
Books on Masculinity
Biddulph, Steve (1997). Raising Boys. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts.
Hoff-Sommers, Christina (2000). The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Kindlon, Dan and Thompson, Michael (2000). Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Mac an Ghaill, Máirtín (1994). The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities, and Schooling. Buckingham, UK and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.
Pollack, William (1998). Real Boys: Rescuing our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. New York, NY: Random House.
Books on Cognitive Gender Theory which are Readable and Interesting
Baron-Cohen, Simon (2003). The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male & Female Brain. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Halpern, Diane F. (2000). Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities (3rd Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Hines, Melissa (2004). Brain Gender. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Kimura, Diane (2000). Sex and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Maccoby, Eleanor E. (1998). The Two Sexes: Growing up Apart, Coming Together. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Books for Specific Teaching Ideas
Brunson, Tammy Kay (2002). Differentiated Instructional Strategies: One Size Doesn’t Fit All. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Erlauer, Laura (2003). The Brain-Compatible Classroom: Using What We Know About Learning to Improve Teaching. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Fashola, Olatokunbo (2002). Building Effective After-School Programs. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Gregory, Gayle H. (2003). Differentiated Instructional Strategies In Practice: Training, Implementation, and Supervision. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Smilkstein, Rita (2003). We’re Born to Learn: Using the Brain’s Natural Learning Process to Create Today’s Curriculum. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Smith, Michael W. and Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. (2002). “Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys:” Literacy in the Lives of Young Men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann/Reid Elsevier.
Sousa, David (2003). How the Gifted Brain Learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Tomlinson, Carol Ann (1999). The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Tomlinson, Carol Ann (2001). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Winebrenner, Susan (1996). Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing.
Wolfe, Patricia (2001). Brain Matters: Translating Research into Classroom Practice. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Books Providing Multicultural Resources
Davis, L. E. (Ed.) (1999). Working With African-American Males: A Guide to Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Denbo, S. J. and Moore Beaulieu, L. (Eds.) (2002). Improving Schools for African American Students: A Reader for Educational Leaders. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Fordam, Signithia (1996). Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity, and Success at Capital High. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Hopkins, Ronnie (1997). Educating Black Males: Critical Lessons in Schooling, Community, and Power. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Ladson-Billings, Gloria (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Ogbu, John U. (2003). Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Valenzuela, Angela (1999). Subtractive Schooling: U. S. Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Books which Supply Curriculum Ideas
I’m not a believer in worksheets, but the following books contain a great many ways to approach learning in a hands-on manner. You might take a look at those which pertain to your course and see if you could use some of the ideas. There are so many similar books. Once you start looking for these, you will find lots of others.
Verbal Skills
Blanchard, Cherie (2002). Word Roots: Learning the building blocks of better spelling and vocabulary Levels A and B. Seaside, CA: The Critical Thinking Co.
Umstatter, Jack (1994) 201 Ready-to-use Word Games for the English Classroom
(1997) Hooked on English!
(1999) Ready-to-use Word Activities
(1999) Ready-to-use Sentence Activities
(1999) Ready-to-use Paragraph Writing Activities
(1999) Ready-to-use Prewriting and Organization Activities
(1999) Ready-to-use Revision and Proofreading Activities
(2000) Ready-to-use Portfolio Development Activities
(2001) Grammar Grabbers!
(2002) English Brainstormers!
(2004). Words, Words, Words!
All of the above are published in San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Sack, Allan (2003). Shortcut to Word Power: Essential Latin and Greek Roots and Prefixes. Berkeley, CA: Optima Books.
Math Skills
Harnadek, Anita (1991). Cranium Crackers: Critical Thinking Activities for Mathematics. Pacific Grove, CA: Critical Thinking Press & Software.
Muschla, Judith and Muschla, Gary Robert (1999). Math Starters! San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Serra, Michael (1992). Mathercise Warm Up Exercises, Books A and B. Berkeley, CA: Key Curriculum Press
Critical Thinking
Parks, Sandra and Black, Howard (1988). Building Thinking Skills. Pacific Grove, CA: Critical Thinking Books & Software. This series has Books for Primary, Book 1, Book 2, Book 3 Figural, and Book 3 Verbal and each level has a student book and a teacher book.
Seymour, Dale and Beardslee, Ed (1990). Critical Thinking Activities in Patterns, Imagery, and Logic. Palo Alto, CA: Dale Seymour Publications.
Steig, William (1968). C D B! New York, NY: The Trumpet Club. A later version of this published in the 1980’s is C D C!
Logic
Petreshene, Susan S. (1985). Mind Joggers! 5 to 15 minute activities that make kids think. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
From MINDWAREonline.com
Venn Perplexors, Perplexors, Noodlers, Logic Links
From criticalthinking.com
Mind Benders A1, 2, 3, 4, B1, 2, 3, 4, C1, 2, 3
Think A Minutes Book 1 and 2 of Levels A, B, and C
From Dale Seymour Publications
Quizzles and More Quizzles, by Wayne Williams
Books for Boys
There are a lot of books that appeal to boys, if you go looking for them. What follows is a list of authors whose works appeal to boys, but there are many others as well. I have not divided this by age as, for example, a young boy who is an active reader will find books by Roald Dahl to be fun and an older boy who is not a facile reader will like the same story just as well and not be insulted by a book that he sees as babyish. I know Goosebumps by R. L. Stine is not considered great literature, but boys will read it, and sometimes the issue is to get their noses in a book. When you have a choice, boys prefer books which are scary, gross, adventuresome, fantastic, real, or violent. They like to read about true crime, sports, animals, space, vehicles, computers, true facts, or other boys. For a great source look at: Kathleen Odean’s Great Books for Boys: More than 600 books for boys 2 to 14. New York, NY: Ballentine.
Boys will like books by:
Douglas Adams, Orson Scott Card, Tom Clancy, Stephen Crane, Roald Dahl, Jack Gantos, The Brothers Grimm, Ernest Hemmingway, Tony Hillerman, Brian Jacques, Rudyard Kipling, Jon Krakauer, Jack London, Gary Paulsen, Dav Pilkey, Daniel Pinkwater, Terry Pratchett, J. K. Rowling, Louis Sachar, Richard Scarry, Maurice Sendak, Jon Scieszka, Lemony Snicket, John Steinbeck, R. L. Stine, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Paul Zindel.
Graphic novels are a great way to get a boy interested in the classics. I’m not talking about glorified comic books or manga. There are a number of series of classic novels which have been illustrated and any of these would be a great place to start.
Puffin Graphics series
Treasure Island: The Graphic Novel
Call of the Wild
Frankenstein
Red Badge of Courage
Macbeth
Dracula
Graphic Classics series
Volume 1: Edgar Allan Poe
Volume 2: Arthur Conan Doyle
Volume 3: H. G. Wells
Volume 4: H.P. Lovecraft
Volume 5: Jack London
And many others
Redwall: The Graphic Novel
If you don’t recognize the title or the author of a graphic novel, it is probably not what you are looking for.