Abstract
African American males make up less than 10% of the public school enrollments, yet they are failing at alarming rates. If educators are not equipped with the resources to promote success amongst African American male students, the achievement gap will increase.
In this project, a book list was created in order to aid teachers in building a culturally inclusive classroom library targeting African American male elementary school students. For information purposes, teachers and pre-service student teachers were surveyed regarding their knowledge of the culture of African American males and their perceptions teaching African American male students. The results indicated a need for teachers to gain insight into the importance of culturally relevant teaching as well as a need for resources to guide them. African American cultural pedagogy is essential in teaching African American males. Classroom literature that is positive and relevant to African American males can aid students in achieving academically by giving them a sense of belonging to the classroom setting, as well as teaching them about positive role models that share a common culture. Encouraging literature that deals with their experiences and problems as well as giving examples of how to resolve those problems will grant them with knowledge and skills useful in real life situations.