As stated in Best Practices in Writing Instruction, “When students do not value writing or a specific writing task, they may exert as little effort as possible to complete it” (Graham, McArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2007). I have seen many different styles of teaching writing. The ones that I see to be most successful are the ones in which the students are given a purpose for writing and also choice. One of the questions we often hear as teachers is, “Why do we have to do this?” I know that I hear it quite frequently, mostly from my intermediate students rather than my primary students. Students need to have a reason for why they are required to complete a specific task. This will help them to be more successful. If they are simply asked to write just to do it, they will be less likely to be motivated.
Giving choice to students gives them an extra motivation to write. There are times when you have to give students a specific topic to write about, but there are also times to let the students choose what they want to write about. The teacher provides the students with the type of writing along with guidelines and the students choose the topic. The class I worked with wrote a variety of writing pieces such as personal narratives, procedural writing, friendly letters, and persuasive essays. The majority of the students truly enjoyed writing these pieces because they had the opportunity to write about topics that meant something to them or that they enjoyed. Many of the boys have a strong interest in wrestling and always seem to find a way to work that into their writing. They became passionate about their writing.
One of my special education students just last week was writing a friendly letter to a pen pal from another school. This student generally struggles with task imitation and needs teacher assistance to help him form his thoughts. We wrote friendly letters earlier in the school year and he wrote them, but did not show the enthusiasm that he did when writing to a pen pal. This practical application motivated him. This particular student wrote a solid two and a half pages independently to his pen pal and did not want to stop. I was so proud of him. I truly believe that choice is an important motivator for students.
While writing persuasive essays, the students worked on trying to persuade their parents to let them have a later bedtime. Although the students were not given a choice on the topic, they were all eager to write. The choice in this particular genre of writing was, what time they should stay up until and how they were going to persuade their parents. The students were engaged in this writing activity because they felt strongly about it. One of my students said that he would use flattery or reverse psychology to persuade his parents. I was impressed with this terminology as this is a second grade student.
I completely agree with the quote from the text. It is an important aspect to consider when teaching writing. It may seem minute, but in the end choice is a motivator for students.
Writing assessments aren't going away. My new thinking is about how we can motivate students to want to write well on state assessments or, better yet, to go beyond state assessments with their skills so that the tests are like playing tic-tac-toe. A simple game of logic and common sense.
ReplyDeleteSo many times it is NOT the genre or writing, itself, that bothers youth. It is the task they're assigned to write about. If teachers can tap into their "funds of knowledge" and home literacies, chances are they will motivate students to become passionate about communicating with written text.