One of the questions I often get is “How do I motivate my students to write?”This post will simply deal with the skeleton of motivation, and then in future blogs we can examine each component separately.
According to Natalie Ekberg in her article, the three main components of motivation, (http://EzineArticles.com/4579443)
The components are:
1.) Direction
2.) Effort
3.) Persistence
You can read the link above if you want to contemplate her general formula for motivation. In this blog I will address these as they pertain to writing instruction and completion of writing assignments.
It’s the rare student who begs for a paper (my daughter is one of those), and it is the rare student who sits down and writes or pursues a topic for the joy of it. This is partially because we humans shy away from hard work (as a rule and as a group), but it is also because our students’ lives are so overloaded with stuff to do that few students have the luxury of sitting down to write contemplatively on a topic of interest.
Essays and other papers have been invented for the purpose of forcing students to consider topics, research topics, and write meaningfully about topics. Without such compulsion, few students would learn to write well. That is our situation when we discuss student writing, and it is a difficult situation to motivate.
We write well about things that we are knowledgeable about. Therefore the beginning criterion for a good writing assignment is an assignment on a topic that the student is well versed in to start with, or second best a topic that the student has an interest in so that researching the topic will be enjoyable.
Let’s return to the components above. The first component is direction. A student needs a sense of direction in order to write well on a topic. That sense of direction comes partially from the assignment being clear and doable, i.e. it comes from the instructor. However, the other part of ‘direction’ comes from the student himself. The student needs to be able to decode the assignment (read it carefully, understand what it says, and decode it into a plan for his writing.) We at Classical Writing try hard to write assignments with a level of clarity, student comprehension, and student motivation that at least stem off the worst writer’s block that the student may be inclined to indulge himself in. The Progymnasmata are especially designed to make the content of the essay familiar to the student so he can focus on say what he knows and what he wants to say in the best way possible.
The second component is effort. I have had many debates with colleagues on the issue of effort (which I will c over in a separate blog in more detail). The debate seems to be ever over whether students are motivated by an encouraging positive instructor who stands behind them… rah, rah, rah… you can do this!! Or whether students are more motivated by a tough instructor who demands much and makes it clear that inadequate efforts result in a failing grade.
The third component is persistence, sticking to the job until it is done. Students are so scattered and have so many things on their plates that often what started with good intentions and effort ends in a belly flop. Persistence is an internal motivation that the student generates throughout life, but it can also be nudged by a persistent and demanding instructor who does not allow his or her assignments to take back burner status.
So in short, to motivate your students, make sure you give clear and easy to decipher assignments that generate student interest, make sure you are there for your students’ questions, supportive in their efforts and helpful along every step of the way (though the essay is THEIRS to write, not yours!), as well as demanding in terms of the work being completed in a timely fashion.