How to Teach Students to Love Writing
By: Markus Skårnes
Tags: Teaching English, Motivation, Education, Teaching, Writing

How to Teach Students to Love Writing

Motivating students to write is important.

How much time do teachers spend trying to teach proper writing skills, such as grammar, spelling, genre, form, and structure? Probably a lot of time. After all, they are important skills for writing successfully. However, how much focus is left for teaching the most important thing of all? Learning to love writing.

If you want to learn how to write better, there is one thing you can’t get away from: the need to practice. And not just a little bit, either. Writing any text is a difficult process. Without motivation, students are likely to either give up or not try very hard.

Now that I’ve outlined the importance of being motivated and excited to write, here’s how you can accomplish that with students.

Make them believe they can learn to write well.

If students believe they are incapable of learning to write, you’ll find it very hard to motivate them for anything. After all, in their minds, what’s the point?

A student’s belief in their ability to succeed in a specific situation is called self-efficacy¹. It comes from several sources and learning how to influence self-efficacy can help teachers motivate students. It’s important to note that ‘specific situation’ means that their abilities in something else, such as sports, have no impact on their self-efficacy for writing.

Mastery experience are the most important source of self-efficacy. Succeeding at a writing task will help students believe they can succeed at future writing tasks. To provide mastery experiences, you should give them tasks that are challenging, but that you know they can do. Once they have overcome smaller challenges, they will feel more equipped to take on bigger ones.

Examples of someone writing well can also help students feel like it’s possible for them. However, it’s important that this is done in an instructional way, and that focus is taken away from the students comparing themselves to others. Even telling them how they can succeed will help, for example with getting them through those initial mastery experiences.

It’s so hard to do something when you don’t believe you’re able to. That’s why it’s so important that teachers help students see that they can become good writers, as long as they keep practicing.

Give writing a purpose.

By this, I don’t mean telling them they have to write because they have an assignment that you need to grade. Why do writers write? Actual writers write because they want to convey something to a reader. Or just to get their thoughts out on paper where they might be a little clearer. Sure, some of them have jobs with deadlines, and might not always write exactly what they want, but they still chose writing over countless other professions for a reason. Help students find that reason, and they will be way more motivated to work on their writing.

Give the students authentic writing tasks², where they write for an audience. This can be an article to be ‘published’ at the school, a letter to someone they care about, or a class blog about what’s important to them. With an actual audience and purpose to the text, not only will they be more motivated, but they might find it easier to write, because they know who they’re writing for.

Interest is something else that can give the writing a purpose for students. If they’re interested in a topic, they’re more likely to want to write about it, simply to tell someone about their interest². Students want to write about things that are relevant to them!³

The context of writing.

The context in which the writing happens is very important for motivation.² Context here applies to many things, such as the writing task itself, the classroom, the social environment, and the emotional context.

For the writing task, remember what you read about giving writing a purpose. Here’s where you can do that. Also, the writing task should be as complex as possible without being too difficult to accomplish. People are more motivated by challenges than by tasks that are too easy for them. However, as mentioned earlier, if they don’t believe they can accomplish the task, they won’t be very motivated at all.

The classroom environment should be prepared for writing, so that when they write, they’ll have what they need. Information, organized writing tools, a calm environment, enough space, and someone they can ask for help. These are all things that can promote a better writing environment.

As much as possible, it’s also important to try to reduce stress and negative emotions in students². Writing can be an unexpectedly difficult process for many, and it’s easy to get discouraged. You can help combat negative emotions about writing with positive reinforcement, and by giving them manageable tasks where they write about what they know.

Motivation can also be promoted by making the classroom more of a writing community, where students read and discuss each other’s writing⁴. If you think of the students as writers, expecting them to establish and audience and a purpose for their writing, they could start to think of themselves as writers too. By seeing them as writers, and letting them engage with each other, you can promote an environment where students write not because they have to, but because they want to.