Nancy Atwell - books and articles - my best and original source as a fifth/sixth grade teacher!!
I wrote an article for The Reading Teacher - think in 96 describing my experience of using some of Atwell's ideas and integrating that with the research on intrinsic motivation that I was also doing at the time. There are of course others. I remember I loved Cora Lee Five's article - forget which journal. And there is lots in the current literature. Now one of my favorite resources is a book on Reading Workshop - can't remember the title and don't have it here with me on vacation but could send it when I get back to school. It's comprehensive and awesome and we bought it for all the teachers at our school - every grade level adapted slightly for the very young and for high school. A lot of people don't really understand the intrinsic motivation research - and I didn't at the time I was teaching but was using approaches like Atwell's and Calkins et al on writing and taking basically a whole language stance as a teacher. Penny Oldfather did her dissertation in my classroom with kids as co-researchers focusing on intrinsic motivation for learning. (She and I and the children went on the do research together for the next 6 years funded by the National Reading Research Center.) That's when I discovered the many many years of research in t he field of motivation that I had never really known (Had always thought of motivation as more fun and rewards etc. which didn't really light my fire!). Seems that the research on intrinsic motivation and the practices I (and of course many others) was using went hand in hand. The arguments sometimes seem counterintuitive to people - like extrinsic rewards (not just punishment) reduce intrinsic motivation. But check it all out. A quick way in is to read Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards. It's super readable but he actually documents well the scholarly research on the subject. Just remember the big three findings from Deci and Ryan's meta-analysis of half a century's worth of research on motivation. Competence, choice (autonomy, and connectedness Those were my big mantra. We are intrinsically motivated when we feel COMPETENT. That's the Goldilocks research - not too hard, not too easy, just right. And in more academic words, working in the zone of proximal development ala Vygotsky! How educators assess also figures in here because of course assessment/response lets us know how we're doing from the outside. The kinds of feedback children receive is important - see all the writing educators here on authentic formative assessment including self assessment. Second we are more motivated when we feel autonomy - that we can have a say over what happens to us. For me this means CHOICE. And the research says it doesn't always have to be total choice. But we do need a say! CONNECTEDNESS has to do with the social nature of learning so the social environment of the classroom where children learn from and with each other is important. And I include relevance as another kind of connectedness. Children need to see their learning connected to the world outside of school, to their lives. So you see a reading workshop approach fits all of these as does writing workshop. As does I should add whole language theory and practice!!! Sally PS let me know if you want me to send the title of the book... On 7/30/09 10:13 AM, "scarlethartdgrl" <scarlethartd...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > I teach 6th grade reading and was wondering if anybody had motivational > suggestions, websites, or ideas for getting students to engage in independent > reading. > > Lauren Amiel > 6th grade reading > Ramblewood Middle School > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
