‘It's healthy. It's good for you’: Children's perspectives on utilising their autonomy in the writing classroom

Abstract

Growing concern about children's writing motivation highlights the need for more research that foregrounds pupil autonomy and examines how classroom practices influence students' sense of agency and control in their writing. This study adopts a self-determination theory (SDT) perspective to explore the role of autonomy and locus of control in shaping writing motivation among primary-aged students. Specifically, it reports on a qualitative interview study with 24 children (aged 9–11, 50% female) from three primary schools in England, focusing on their feelings and experiences of autonomy in relation to school-based writing. Thematic analysis, illustrated within Graham's (2018) production strategies for writing, identified three key themes relating to children's perceptions of the locus of control for their writing and the extent to which this was held by, or shared between, the teachers or themselves, with (a) teacher-controlled writing, (b) student-controlled writing and (c) collaboratively-controlled writing themes identified. Children's perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of teacher and student-controlled writing are discussed, before their thoughts on a ‘collaboratively-controlled writing’ approach are shared. This research provides novel and important insights for educators, researchers and policy-makers into how collaboratively-controlled writing projects could enhance primary students' writing motivation, and contributes to current discourse on effective and affecting writing pedagogy.