Introduction

There would seem to be little more important for would-be English teachers to explore in

hopes of becoming skilled at helping their students to become efficient readers and writers than

the subject of motivation. A generation ago the exploration of motivation research would lead

one to become familiar with the use of extrinsic motivators in motivation. These days, however,

fewer experts focus on the use of external rewards to get students reading and writing. Instead,

the majority of psychologists/educators who research motivation encourage teachers to help their

students become inherently interested in the process of reading and writing. In this paper I will

briefly describe why intrinsic motivation has displaced extrinsic motivation as experts’ most

preferred method for motivating students. I will follow this by bringing to light two very

important first steps necessary to get students on the road to becoming intrinsically motivated

students (namely, getting students to believe in their own abilities, as well as convincing them

that reading and writing truly are affecting, enjoyable activities), and both list and discuss the

most frequently recommended means of facilitating student interest in the process of reading and

writing.

The Main Problem with Extrinsic Motivation

Researchers still do advocate the use of external rewards to motivate students to read and

write (i.,e., the use of extrinsic motivation), but they often qualify their recommended usage.

Wigfield (2000) is one of many researchers who now sees the use of rewards as useful only for

“the acqui[sition] of basic skills needed for reading [. . .] [which] may not be intrinsically

motivating for many children” (p. 149). For the most part contemporary researchers prefer to

attend to how intrinsic motivation, fostering the sheer love of reading and writing for its own

sake, can be nurtured in students. The reason for the shift of focus over the years is that

intrinsically motivated students have been proven to (1) have relatively higher achievement
measured by standardized tests or grades (Sweet, Guthrie, & Ng, 1998); (2) to have relatively

higher text comprehension (Guthrie et al., 1998); and (3) to read far more and more frequently

(Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997) than extrinsically motivated and unmotivated students. Research

shows that extrinsically motivated students all too often desist in activities once the rewards for

these activities are no longer offered (Wigfield, 2000). The primary difficulty researchers have

with the use of extrinsic motivation, then, is not that extrinsic motivation doesn’t work, but that

extrinsic rewards often work in opposition to attempts to get students intrinsically interested in

reading and writing. As Fawson and Moore (1999) conclude, “[e]xternal rewards have an

undermining effect on intrinsic motivation” (p. 326).

Important First Step: Believe in Your Students

Before students can develop an intrinsic interest in reading and writing, they have to

believe they have the ability to become competent readers and writers, and, unfortunately, by the

time they reach secondary school, many students believe instead that they “just aren’t good at

English.” Too many well meaning teacher end up inadvertently reinforcing the students’ sense of

themselves as inherently incapable of being skilled readers and writers. According to Borich and

Tombari (1995), techniques teachers have often used to encourage struggling readers and writers,

such as expressing sympathy at failure, showing surprise at success, giving excessive and

unsolicited help, and lavishing praise upon students upon completion of relatively simple tasks,

often end up reinforcing a student’s belief that he or she is constitutionally a poor reader and/or

writer. Since research has demonstrated that a student’s sense of his/her efficacy relates strongly

to their performance in tasks such as reading and writing (e.g., Bandura, 1977), many researchers

have concluded that the important first step in creating proficient, internally motivated readers

and writers is to get them to begin to believe in their own self-efficacy. Teachers therefore must

resist seeing their classroom as divided into high and low performers, and conceive of all of their
students as capable and bright (OECD, 2000).

Essential Second Step: Modelling Reading Pleasure

Even if a teacher begins to get students to begin to believe in themselves, they (teachers)

must still persuade them that it is worth their while to engage in the struggle to become

competent readers and writers. That is, teachers must show students who, even by secondary

school, may not entirely be sure that reading and writing are inherently rewarding activities. The

teacher therefore must (1) themselves truly love reading and writing, and (2) find ways to share

with students what these activities have meant to them. As Alexander and Fives (2000) argue,

“the prospect of creating a literacy-rich learning environment that fosters continued and optimal

literacy development in all children is greatly enhanced when teachers find real pleasure and

importance in reading” (p. 297).

Gambrell (1996) recommends to teachers that they “share their personal reading with

students and to be more explicit in illustrating to children the value of reading in their own lives”

(p. 21). She argues that when teachers can give their students some sense of the effect reading

has had on their own lives, they can become effective models for students. Students are

encouraged to “associate reading with enjoyment, pleasure, and learning” (p. 21). Her argument

is corroborated by my own personal experience. I was motivated to read poetry on my own only

after my experience with a teacher who interspersed his lectures with quotes from the likes of

Blake, Wordsworth, and Byron. These Romantic poets evidently had a continuing hold on my

teacher; they evidently were something he referred to over and over again for wisdom, for

company, for pleasure. I did not doubt my ability to read and understand poetry, but, previously,

I did doubt its worth. This teacher’s powerful and sustained demonstration of the importance of

Romantic poetry in his life was sufficient to get me interested in seeing if I too might find

fellowship with some of the Romantic poets.

 Class Library

A teacher who obviously loves books, and believes in the abilities of his/her students, is

likely to gain the trust of students and suggest to them that books offer them something of

considerable value, he/she must still find ways to structure his/her classroom and activities to

facilitate the continuing development of student interest in reading and writing. One way of

doing this is to have a well stocked and well designed library in the classroom. Not only is a

library in the classroom further evidence that their teacher truly loves books, it also provides

students easy access to a world of books from which they can choose and find their own

favourites. Though there are some educators, such as Nancie Atwell (1998), who choose not to

stock their class library with “unliterary” works, others recommend that teachers stock their

library with magazines, comic books, etc. (eg., Versaci, 2001) Not only are such mediums

intrinsically appealing to students (Versaci, 2001), having them in the classroom can be one

means of maintaining students’ sense of self worth: it tells them that the sorts of things they read

on their own count as reading material.

Of course, some libraries are better than others. Researchers tell us that students are

attracted to libraries that are appealing and highly visible (Morrow, 1991). It is also a good idea

to stock the class library with books which deal with topics teenagers care to know more about.

Fortunately we live in a time where many excellent young adults are published every year. High

school students who want to know more about, say, first dating experiences, could look to a book

such as Ellen Wittlinger’s Hard Love to find characters with whom they could compare their own

experiences with. Hard Love’s protagonist writes about his feelings and publishes them in his

own zine. Thereby, his friends who read his zine are better able to understand what he is going

through, and are therefore able to provide him with meaningful responses. This particular book

happens to be ideal for a reading and writing teacher to have available in his/her class library
because it both deals with a topic adolescents are interested in, and powerfully conveys the

rewards literacy provides one with.

It should be noted that most researchers who advocate that teachers have book-rich

environments also argue that teachers make proper use of them so that the books do not simply

become class props. Gambrell (1996), for example, refers to a study (the Bradford Book-Food

experiment) which showed that facilitating access to books was not sufficient to develop

dramatic students interest in books. She concludes that teachers must know what to do with the

books so that they can be used to stimulate student interest.

Choice and Autonomy

As mentioned, encouraging students to make use of a class library is one of the means by

which a teacher can get students actively involved in their education. It helps communicate to

students that learning is not simply something that happens to them; they can initiate their own

explorations in the classroom. Choice, creating an open classroom, is crucial, according to

Turner and Paris (1995), in “sustaining student interest in reading and writing” (p. 664). They

argue that when a teacher gives a student choice, not just in the books that they will read, but in

nature of their writing tasks, that students come to take more “personal responsibility for their

literacy” and “are more likely to use learning strategies like summarizing or backtracking rather

than shortcuts like memorizing, copying, or guessing” (p. 665).

Turner (1997) compared how literary tasks were received by students when they were

“open” and when they were “closed.” Open tasks were ones which permitted students to set

goals, select and organize information, choose strategies, and assess the final results, while

closed tasks were those in which few opportunities were provided for students to control their

tasks. In open composition tasks students could, for example, decide on their own theme, choose

what subject they wanted to write on, etc. In closed tasks these options were denied to students.
Turner found that the room teachers provided for student autonomy and choice was a crucial

factor in determining whether students became actively engaged in their writing tasks. As Turner

and Paris (1995) so perfectly put it, “[s]tudents want to see themselves as originators of plans

and ideas, not as followers in a grand scheme they may not understand” (p. 667).

Some theorists, however, conclude that students can be overwhelmed by too much

choice. Some theorists specify that “a modest amount of choice” (Stipek, 1993, p. 107) develops

intrinsic motivation. Hunt (1975), amongst others, reminds that there may be no one kind of

educational environment which suits all children. The importance of a teacher taking into

consideration the difference in learning styles of his/her students when incorporating choice into

the classroom, cannot be overemphasized.

Challenge and Curiosity

As mentioned, one of the means by which teachers inadvertently communicate to

students that they (the teachers) do not believe in the students’ ability to read and/or write at a

high level is to assign them tasks that are too easy. Students need to succeed at tasks which they

find challenging in order to develop confidence in their abilities (Turner & Paris, 1995).

Moreover, research has proved that challenging tasks are intrinsically more interesting and fun

for students than unchallenging tasks. They tend to lead to more engaged student participation,

and end up enhancing student learning in a variety of ways. According to Turner and Paris,

challenging tasks “prompted students to use more organizational and self-monitoring strategies”

(p. 666) than unchallenging tasks. Researchers remind us, however, that just as you can give

students too much choice, they can be given tasks which challenge their own abilities too

strongly. Students who experience failure too often quickly become frustrated; if they have a

poor sense of self-efficacy, repeated failure can confirm their own negative self-assessment

(Stipek, 1993), which will frustrate the teacher’s subsequent attempts to develop an intrinsic love
for reading and writing in the child.

Books and tasks chosen by the teacher should entice students’ curiosity and interest.

There are a number of ways of doing this. A variety of books and tasks could be used so that

students don’t become bored with an overly familiar routine. Books used in the curriculum

should be of intrinsic interest to children, and teachers could introduce new kinds of textual

material, such as electronic reading sources, into their classrooms (Guthrie, 2000). The tasks can

be designed so that they require higher-order or divergent thinking and active problem solving.

Also, teachers can question their students in ways which stimulate their interest and curiosity.

Stipek (1993) argues that questions that reveal “discrepancies in students’ understanding” (p. 91),

for example, work to engage student curiosity.

Social Interaction

Motivation researchers haven’t limited their interest simply to student/teacher

interactions. Recent research has uncovered that students should be encouraged to share their

reading with one another. According to Turner and Paris (1995), social interaction facilitates

reading and writing achievement, the development of higher cognitive skills, as well as an

intrinsic desire to read. This shouldn’t be a hard thing for teachers to accomplish since students

love to share their favourite books with one another. They also love to read books they know

something about; therefore the books they end up reading are often those their peers are excited

about (Turner & Paris). Research suggests that students should also be encouraged to work

together on writing tasks. Working together on writing tasks helps develop an intrinsic interest

in writing, and it affords students opportunities to develop a better sense of their peers’ writing

abilities. According to Turner and Paris, such understanding leads to greater confidence in a

student’s own writing ability.

I find Turner and Paris’s (1995) results to be surprising, that is, I would have thought that
consistent exposure to one’s peers writing would prove as discouraging as it would encouraging

for students. However, I admit that the very few times in high school when teachers had us read

each others’ writing, I found the experience to be empowering. I learned that those who got

better grades than I did weren’t necessarily better writers; they made fewer grammatical errors,

yes, but their style was not better than mine was--just different. And I also found those few

experiences to be inspiring. I really liked the idea that what we wrote would be shared with

someone else other than our teacher for a change. By sharing each other’s writings we had a

chance to better understand how we all thought and felt. It made us feel closer, and got us

excited about anticipated future opportunities in which we could share each other’s works with

one another.

Conclusion

Though extrinsic motivation, the use of rewards to stimulate learning, once dominated

motivation research, most leading researchers now focus on intrinsic motivation. I hope in this

essay to have made clear why this shift occurred, and, more importantly, to have introduced my

reader to the variety of ways in which an intrinsic interest in reading and writing can be

encouraged with secondary school students. Researchers believe that making books easily

available to students by such means as a class library, and the incorporation of choice, challenge,

and social interaction with reading and writing tasks, are very effective means of developing this

interest. However, unless the teacher effectively communicates to his/her students that they are

all capable readers and writers and persuades them that reading and writing affords terrific,

lifelong pleasures, well thought out techniques to inculcate intrinsic interest likely will prove

unsuccessful.

Reflections

Since my primary goal as a future teacher is to get as many students as possible excited
about reading and writing, I doubt that I could have picked a better topic to explore than

motivation. (I certainly was intrinsically interested to learn about motivation!) What I will take

with me is a good sense of how much research has been done on motivation. As a teacher, I will

know many of the leading names of motivation research to look to for continuing guidance.

Though my emphasis in this paper was to attend to the conclusions of research studies, I did

introduce myself to what many teachers said worked best for them in motivating their students to

become excited about reading and writing.

I was never one for extrinsic motivation, but I was pleased to find out that research

supports my preferred way of motivating students. I was very glad to find that motivation

research seems much more influenced by humanistic psychology than behavioural psychology. I

therefore will also take with me some sense of optimism that schools, influenced by educational

research, will continue to move in progressive directions (maybe we might even one day get rid

of grades!). I was also pleased to find that there was so much agreement between researchers as

to how to develop intrinsic motivation. My guess is that I have an enormous amount to learn

about how to structure the appropriate amount of choice and challenge into my assignments, but

at least I know for certain that these are the areas I need to attend to in order to engage my

students.

Finally, I will take me with a renewed sense of mission. Many of the studies I came

across showed how teachers could successfully motivate students who previously had read little

and had little interest in reading and writing. I find that much of the news I hear about schools

these days to be depressing, and it is good, and probably necessary, to hear more about how

teacher’s are successfully managing to affect their students’ lives for the better.