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There has been a great deal of groundbreaking research done on motivation during the last twenty-five years, and all of it points to the importance of intrinsic motivation. This research has very significant ramifications for teachers of English.
With all due respect to the many excellent scholars working in the field of composition, I would suggest that the single most important sentence in the last twenty-five years of composition scholarship occurs in Linda Brodkey's essay "Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only":
While it appears to take longer in some cases than in others, composition instruction appears to have succeeded best at establishing a life-long aversion to writing in most people, who have learned to associate a desire to write with a set of punishing exercises called writing in school: printing, penmanship, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary in nearly all cases; grammar lessons, thesis sentences, paragraphs, themes, book reports, and library research papers in college preparatory or advanced placement courses. (220)
These are disturbing words, indeed-but important ones, too, it seems to me. In this essay, I engage the issue of "aversion" that Brodkey raises and address it in relation to the growing body of scholarship related to intrinsic motivation and my own experience in the composition classroom.
Before turning to intrinsic motivation, I want to consider the validity of Brodkey's claim: Is it true that we encounter significant levels of "aversion" to reading and writing in our typical high school English classes, in our basic writing classrooms, in our first-year composition courses? Let us answer this question with as much candor and courage as we dare. Personally, I have taught composition at an open admissions institution now for over twenty years, and I have encountered my fair share of aversion to writing, especially in my basic writing classes. I have also worked with a number of area high school English teachers over the last several years, and I have heard plenty about student aversion to writing from them as well. Is it possible that the most lasting and significant learning outcome many students take away from English classes is a life-long aversion to writing? Alas, I think it may be.
Another way to begin understanding the scope and significance of this problem is to ask...