ABSTRACT
Both as readers, when adopting a personal stance to make reader-text connections, and as writers, when creating stories and informational texts, boys often demonstrate difficulty assuming perspectives different from their own or reflecting on the world around them from someone else’s point of view. Girls display a greater willingness to “step into another person’s shoes,” but may not draw on a full range of information to convincingly convey what they know. When we invite students to step out into the world around them, as they do in the next activity, “Parallel Lives,” they can use what they’ve learned as readers and writers to consider differences and commonalities among various peoples, places, periods of time, and of course, gender.
