When English teachers dream, we dream of interested writers.  They are the students who invest themselves in writing, who carefully consider the structure of their arguments, who care about crafting a sentence.  When we look around our classrooms, however, we find a mix of students, only some of them interested in writing.

from “Interest for writing: how teachers can make a difference” by Lipstein & Renninger (2007)

I would go even further, though, and say that apparently none of the students seem interested in the kind of analytical, academic writing that is commonplace in the high school English class.  I remember vividly the first day I introduced my ninth graders to their first Odyssey essay, and it was met by a chorus of groans, followed by a lengthy struggle to get them on board. So, thus far there are two questions at hand: Is it the case that students dread any and all forms of writing, or just what they perceive to be the stale writing options that are called for at school?  And, second, how can teachers find and draw on students’ existing interest(s) to make academic writing a little less like pulling teeth?

First things first: let’s talk about interest. As it turns out, the way that we talk about interest in everyday speech is a bit different from the way that educational psychologists conceive of things.  We talk about being interested in something–as in, “I’m interested in baseball,” or “I’m really interested in finding out why Hurley never lost weight after being on that island for 6 years.”  The way that we use interest in everyday speech implies that our interests are static, almost like personality traits.  We are or are not interested in something, and if we’re not, we most likely will not change our minds and become interested in it.  However, interest, as a “scientific” motivational variable, is different creature entirely.

I think that we realize that in the classroom it’s a little different, and that we can find ways to engage our students and to win them over.  We try to find exciting ways to make learning relevant in order to do just that.  So if we start to think about how interest really works, and how we can support it to develop, we can more easily find concrete strategies to get our kids interested in writing (and make English teachers’ dreams come true).

I think a great place to start is listening to the people who’ve done the research.  Hidi & Renninger’s (2006) work on interest (as well as their earlier work and the literature that they build on) defines interest as a “predisposition to reengage content over time.”  Most importantly, interest is a variable which can be developed (or supported to develop).  Interest exists in what they call “phases”–four phases to be exact.  Importantly, interest is not a static trait, as most of us mistakenly believe, at least in terms of its implications for teaching and learning.  What does this mean?  This means that being interested in baseball, painting, whatever, means different things to different people, and also means different things to the same person at different stages of interest.  Okay.  So that’s a lot to take in.  Bear with me.

The phases of interest include:

1. Triggered situational interest
2. Maintained situational interest
3. Emerging individual interest
4. Well-developed individual interest

Now, let’s talk about each, in turn.  The first phase, triggered situational interest, refers to a state in which interest is sparked by some kind of surprising new information that inspires an individual to find out more.  Maybe you’ve just learned something about a celebrity that you can personally relate to and you’re motivated to do a quick Google search to find out more.  BAM.  Triggered situational interest.

Maintained situational interest refers to the continued predisposition to reengage the content.  This basically means that you’re interested enough in this celebrity’s life (or whatever) that you are motivated to persist in searching for information to absorb.  You go through all of Perez Hilton’s archives about this particular person, maybe across several different days.

The next phase, emerging individual interest, refers to a more “enduring” predisposition, or tendency, to engage the content over time.  You might go and rent every movie that Celebrity X has had a part of and watch them all.  Seek out some documentary, too.  This celebrity example is beginning to be a stretch.

The final phase, well-developed individual interest, is characterized by a long-term predisposition to engage the content area.  In this phase of interest, a learner can generate/direct his own learning opportunities and explore freely without the need of external support.

Let’s pause here for some important clarification.  These descriptions are brief and admittedly a bit vague.  It will all make a little more sense once we get to the writing portion of the post, so keep on reading.  It is important to keep in mind that as interest deepens (or progresses in its development through the phases), learners participate differently in the gathering of information, pursuit of skills, or completion of tasks.  Engagement looks different at different phases of interest.  Further, as interest deepens, so do stored knowledge and positive feelings toward the content.  Thus, the more interested a person is in a particular subject, the more they know about it and the more they “like” it.  This intuitively makes sense, yes? At different phases of interest, an individual is “equipped” with certain tools, and these tools change as interest changes.  Okay.

Some “rules”:

• Engagement looks different at different phases of interest.  In other words, a person who has a “well-developed individual interest” for American literature, for example, will be able to explore freely and meaningfully, while an individual with only “triggered situational interest” for the same will not.
• As interest deepens, so does stored knowledge
• As interest deepens, so do positive feelings
• Interest development (i.e. progression through the four phases of interest) is “pushed along” by environmental factors and support, and opportunities for challenge and reengagement.
• Individuals at earlier phases of interest require more external support and guidance than individuals at later phases of interest

Phew.  So, finally, let’s talk about writing.  By this point, we should have abandoned the conception of interest as a static, unchangeable “character trait” in a person.  Meaning that just because you have a classroom of students who are “not interested” in writing, it doesn’t mean that their interest for writing cannot be supported to develop.  Again, this should make sense to any teacher.  Once you find a way to trigger their interest, once you help students to find a way into the content, you’ve struck gold.  The best part is, it’s science.  The key is to figure out, for your particular group of young learners, what exactly can trigger their interest for writing.

Interest and Writing: Part II will discuss the phases of interest in the context of writing, specifically.