Dive Brief:
-
Writing for an audience — even just a single reader — can have a positive impact on students’ motivation and enjoyment when completing writing assignments, particularly if they have someone in mind while writing.
-
By thinking about who may be reading what they’re writing, students will consider how they craft an assignment, whether that's jotting down thoughts in a journal, finishing an essay that will be read by their teacher, or creating materials shared with peers, said Steve Graham, regents’ professor and Mary Emily Warner professor at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.
-
The key is making sure students understand there is an audience, and who that may be. “You’re more likely to write if you’re writing for someone and they like what you write,” Graham said. “And you’re likely to persist more when things get hard in the writing.”
Dive Insight:
The antithesis to writing for a reader, Graham said, is the classic assignment where students are told to write a letter that is never sent, or when they're asked to complete essays or short pieces for state or district assessments.
However, Graham said, an audience doesn’t need to be an entity or person outside of the school — the reader students are writing for can be their own peers, with pieces displayed on schoolroom walls or published within a class anthology.
“It’s important to realize an audience can be the classroom,” Graham said.
Graham suggests that educators consider a potential motivating factor for why a student is writing. These can be internal or intrinsic motivations, like feeling a need to get a story out, or external motivations such as applying for a prize or using writing “to self-regulate, because we’re bored,” Graham said.
“It’s important to have them engaged in tasks with a real purpose with a real audience,” Graham said.
Dive Awards
