Getting Kids to Write: Motivation

Teaching writing is at the top of many teachers’ lists of things that are hardest to do.  The actual teaching of it can be uncomfortable for many, but a bigger part of what can make it difficult is getting kids to write.  How do we motivate them?  How do we get them to actually apply all the skills we’re working so hard to teach? What, exactly, is the secret to getting kids to write with skill, stamina, and self-motivation?

It’s not just one thing.  It’s a few things.  

They’re worth digging into, because they cannot be glossed over. If they are, we’ll never get kids to write. 

Today, I’m going to talk about just one of the core foundations of building a classroom of skilled, motivated writers.  I’ll address the other important things in a future post or two. Like I said, these are all foundational things that cannot be glossed over.

First, we must do what we can to cultivate motivation.  

No one likes to do anything they don’t want to do. When we have to do what we don’t like to do over and over again, all the energy will be zapped  and you’ll be left with a whole bunch of uninspired kids who dread every minute of it.  This means half effort or worse.  It could very well also mean behavior issues for those that really don’t like it.

Image shows boy in plaid shirt with head in hand frustrated with writing.
An unmotivated student will not want to write. Image from Seventyfour via Depositphotos.

Motivation is at the very top of Serravallo’s hierarchy of important writing goals to work on in her excellent The Writing Strategies Book (2017). Meehan and Sorum begin their book The Responsive Writing Teacher (2021) with a comprehensive chapter devoted to student interest and motivation. It’s also the foundation of Duke and Cartwright’s Active View of Reading (2021), which can easily extend to writing.  And Graham and colleagues have written about it quite a bit. 

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room:  curriculum mandates.

If all we ever do is ask kids to write in response to a prompt, as is the case with many curricula out there, it will get stale pretty fast.  Especially if the topics are uninteresting to kids , irrelevant to their lives, or over their heads.  No matter how much excitement a teacher tries to bring into these topics, writing about ancient civilizations or Earth’s changing surfaces or what makes a specific book character interesting for weeks on end can be excruciating. Especially if this is the only kind of writing happening year after year after year.  

Most states have standards that ask students to write opinion, narrative, and informational texts.  Writing about reading, as found in most scripted curricula, most often falls under the opinion or informational category.  It’s writing in response to a prompt.  

We need to make room for so much more than that. 

Writing to prove a prompted claim is not exactly using your voice. Opinion and argument writing is also all about taking a stance on something real and important to the individual, and using their voice (or, rather, their pen) to shout from the rooftops–to a real audience.  It’s what leaders do.  Isn’t it our aim as educators to develop future leaders? 

Which brings me to to my next point.  

One of the best ways to get kids to write with motivation?  

Build in an authentic audience.  

I cannot stress this enough.  Unless it’s truly set up to draw a crowd who is there to read what’s posted, displaying writing on the hallway walls with no audience interaction is not writing for an audience.  It’s writing to decorate the walls. As well, handing work in to the teacher is not writing for an audience.  That’s completing an assignment.  It’s compliance.  

Image shows teacher standing behind group of students pointing to paper providing feedback to student about writing.
Teacher, peer, and self feedback motivates students to write. Image from Syda_Productions via Depositphotos.

Instead, students can share their writing with each other and receive feedback.  They can share their writing with another class.  Their work can be compiled and shared with families.  Better yet, families can be invited in to read, hear, and celebrate students’ writing. 

Are there things going on in your school or community that kids might have an opinion about?  Who are the decision-makers with those goings-on? Your students can write letters or speeches to argue their stance.  Email and snail mail are easy options for sharing writing and being heard. But the key here is that you must actually truly deliver your students’ work to the people they’re writing to!  Stuck for ideas for who a potential audience might be? Ask Chat GPT–you’ll get some really solid ideas!

Part of motivation is also choice. 

If we want to get our kids to write, they’ve got to have some choice in the matter.

This can be as simple as choosing what sort of paper they use or the topic they pick, but it’s more about choosing how they want to craft their work.  This is their application of sentence variety, word choice, and finding their voice as a writer.  Again, always following a formulaic structure, as so many curricula dictate, will stifle and bore kids.  

We cannot direct them along, lockstep, all of the time. They need to develop their own voice and style. They need to try things out, figure out better ways, and learn from that, too. Kids learn from our direct instruction, yes.  But they also learn from their own trial and error. They need to see themselves as capable writers, and not always rely on us to tell them what they’re doing well or what needs improvement..  Stephen King said it best in his book On Writing (2000) when he lamented, “Do you need someone to make you a paper badge with the word WRITER on it before you can believe you are one? God, I hope not.” 

Do not misunderstand me–of course our students need some formulaic structure.  That can be the beginning scaffold from which they can take off.  But we do have to let them take off. We have to let them–trust them–to make some writer’s choices of their own. 

Finally, with the topic of motivation comes feedback.  

Image shows teacher with glasses and beige sweater sitting beside young boy in yellow shirt to provide feedback on his writing.
Providing feedback is crucial for building student motivation to write. Image from Wavebreakmedia via Depositphotos.

John Hattie deems feedback so effective, it has a .51 effect size.  It’s crucial.  Students need to know what they’re doing well so they can continue doing it.  And they need to know what their next steps are.  Feedback can come from us, from peers, and of course, from themselves.  It can even come from AI.  This kind of feedback is the kind that moves kids forward–it’s what we want.

But there’s also feedback that doesn’t move them forward.  

Narrowly focusing only on the smaller things like grammar and punctuation will not fully move students forward as writers.  Sure, it’ll fix that piece of writing, but there’s a whole writing process to develop: idea generation, planning, organization, elaboration, revision. This is the work of writers. It’s what Joan Sedita talks about at length in her book The Writing Rope (2022). Focusing on only the small things is just editing–the final phase before publishing.

Only marking everything up that needs to be fixed and handing it back will just cause feelings of defeat.  For younger students, writing “the real way” below what a child writes (a crime my first year teacher self was guilty of) only sends the message that their efforts aren’t good enough.  It’s patronizing.  Imagine this from a child’s vantage point: year after year receiving messages of “your work isn’t good enough” would make anyone dread writing.  Especially if it’s not something that comes easily to a child. 

I suspect this is why so many teachers feel the way they do about writing.

Why would we perpetuate that cycle for our students? 

I know this is primarily the kind of instruction I got when I was in school.  I remember a lot of red marks and I made a lot of corrections, but did I get real feedback that transferred to all writing? Did it go beyond the editing phase?  I can remember exactly one teacher who did in all my years of school. If it wasn’t for Mrs. Welty, my sophomore English teacher, I too, would probably have feelings of dread when it comes to writing. But she knew one of the secrets to getting kids to write: provide transferable feedback, and let them fly. 

Getting kids to write so that we can get them to write well begins with motivation.  Without it, there’s no buy-in.  No self-efficacy.  And for so many students, no point.  Start with building this foundation and your students will be well on their way to becoming strong, confident, and very capable writers!


Coach from the Couch is here to help you through virtual coaching!

Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle, a 25-year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!  Simply email me at [email protected] or reach out for a coaching call! I’m here to partner with you to build that foundation of student motivation for writing so your students can realize greater success.

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