A major issue in the contemporary education system in American schools is the recurrent finding of lower-level English classes being primarily composed of male students. These students are often reluctant readers and have difficulty engaging with the English curriculum. There have been several studies focused on this topic of difficult to engage male learners and methods that can be implemented in the classroom to increase their interest and participation in the subject of English. During my student-teaching experience, I was presented with a lower-level English classroom composed primarily of young male students. In this paper, I explore the disengaged and often disruptive behavior of boys in lower-level English classes and how to actively engage these learners. By using student interest, learning styles, and varied instructional strategies suggested by the literature, we set up our male (and female) learners for success and were able to further engage our students.
