Writing motivation

Writing motivation is one's activation or energizing to give more effort to writing activity. It focuses on one’s appraisal of the relationship between writing activity and writing outcome. Like reading motivation writing motivation is intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic writing motivation comes from within. It includes one's desire to make archive (documentation), to express emotions (emotional expression), to satisfy creation urge (creativity) and to develop mastery over writing (achievement). Extrinsic writing motivation is for satisfying others. It includes one's desire to write to be loved (affiliation), to be recognized by others (recognition) and to avoid punishment. Writing activity includes memory retrieval, goal setting, planning, problem solving and evaluation.

Levels of Motivation

Writing motivation occurs at three levels:

1. Specific level – focusing on the processes between goal setting and writing sentences;
2. Intermediate level – focusing on the processes between goal setting and writing scenes;
3. General level – focusing on overall structure of a piece of writing.

There are also different variations of motivation in writing: intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation focuses on the idea that students have motivation to write in order to receive good grades. Intrinsic motivation is driven by internal rewards, and has the potential to stimulate a lifelong writer. While having extrinsic motivation to write is helpful, it is more ideal to be intrinsically motivated to write for maximum growth.

Strategies

Improve hand-eye coordination

Improve hand-eye coordination in writing following writing skills, e.g., clockwise and anti clockwise circling, angular writing, keeping symmetry and inter word spacing.

Improve key processes

Improve key processes of writing as:

1. Planning: Generate ideas and organize them into writing plan to satisfy writer’s goals;
2. Sentence-generation process: Turning the writing plan into the actual writing of sentences;
3. Revision process: Evaluating what has been written.

In the planning stage, the writer organizes main goals and sub goals of writing to form a coherent writing plan. A good writer uses strategic knowledge in a flexible way. The structure of writing plan often changes during the writing period as new ideas come to the writer, or dissatisfaction grows with the original writing plan. If the plan proves inadequate, then the writing process grinds to a halt.

The greatest difference between experts and non experts is in plan integration – experts goals were much better integrated. Two major strategies are used in the planning stage: the knowledge-telling strategy and the knowledge transferring strategy. Writers using a knowledge transferring strategy should produce more organized texts than those produced by using a knowledge telling strategy. Well organized texts contain high-level main points that describe important themes.

After planning and sentence generation, a good writer spends time in revising so that the ideas become clearer, coherent and well argued. Expert writers detected about 60% more problems in a text than did non-experts.

Change from extrinsic to intrinsic writing motivation

Avoid extraneous reinforcement for writing. Do not do any thing so that child can relate that his writing performance is related to the outcome of praise, recognition and love of others. Rather develop his mind set so that child can relate the writing outcome with his level of changes in writing competency, in expressing emotions, making documents and in creative productions.

Caroline and Fallon are workout buddies. Caroline loves to go to the gym and will go often just because she wants to. Meanwhile, Fallon hates to workout, but she still continues to go because her doctor told her she has to start working out to lose weight. Caroline is intrinsically motivated to work out everyday. Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you foster personal interest in that particular thing. Fallon, works out because she has to avoid the consequences that come with not working out or for a reward, which is being Extrinsically motivated.

Teacher's Response to Encourage Intrinsic Motivation in Writing

As an educator, it is important to shift extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation in students. This means that students desire to write quality work because it is enoyable, rather than for the purpose of acquiring good grades. Students that have intrinsic motivation to write are proven to enjoy writing more and to write better pieces to promote personal growth. Teachers can encourage intrinsic motivation in students in a variety of ways, including:

1. Carefully provide constructive criticism to students' writing-if a student feels as though they are not succeeding or are not talented at a given subject, they are more likely to lack motivation on current and future works of writing. Lifting the spirits and confidence of a child through positive reinforcement by reminding them that they are doing a good job and that their effort is appreciated will allow the student to be more interested in their own personal writing.
2. Begin critique with positives about the content or grammar of the piece of writing: If a student feels as though they are not a good writer, it is difficult to foster intrinsic motivation in the subject. Begin any critique by reminding the student that they have solid effort and talent in the subject, and also discuss their progress and growth as a writer before beginning the constructive criticism
3. Allow students to feel as though you, as an educator, are interested in what they have to say: simply making notes in students writing concerning grammar mistakes is not enough. Teachers should show interest concerning the content of the writing in order to create a dialogue between the student and the teacher
4. Set appropriate emphasis on testing and grading-if a student always believes that they are working towards a grade, it will become infinitely more difficult to foster intrinsic motivation. Obviously, grading is important in the classroom, but it is also valuable to allow a student to express themselves through writing without making them feel as though any mistake will have negative consequences.
5. Give students as much control over their own writing and education as possible: for example, let students choose paper topics and write what they are passionate about can increase a student's interest in writing and promote personal growth in writing

See also

• Reading motivation
• Motivation

External links

• Dutta Roy, D. (2003). Development of the questionnaire for assessment of Reading and Writing motivation of Boys and Girls of Grades III and IV. The project report, submitted in the Indian Statistical Institute - 700 108.

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