Motivating Writers in Class ─ Theory and Interventions

Writing is a very complex process that is difficult to teach, learn, and research. Although many students struggle with writing, composing often presents major challenges for students with disabilities. One area of written expression that presents particular difficulties for students with disabilities is motivation.

Motivation is a key aspect of written expression that helps all writers complete difficult composing tasks. However, students with disabilities may have more negative motivational patterns and may also be less positive about writing and their ability as writers than their normally achieving peers.

Logically, this means that effective writing intervention efforts must not only address how to write but must also articulate methods to increase students’ motivation to write. This book, written for teachers, scholars, and researchers, focuses on the essential issue of helping students learn how to want to write. Each contributing author presents an important theoretical or pedagogical element of writing motivation, for example:

• The historical beginnings of research in this area
• Conceptual and methodological advances in the field of motivation to write
• Developmental trajectories of writing motivation in typical and atypical populations
• The effect of playful writing tasks on the development of writing ability as well as on motivation to write
• The impact of writing prompts on motivation
• How reading motivation relates and supports writing motivation

This book was originally published as a special issue of Reading and Writing Quarterly.

Bruce Saddler is Assistant Professor in the Special Education program at the University of Albany, USA. His research interests include writing disabilities, self-monitoring, and self-regulation.