The problem of motivation

I think it's that time of the semester when all of my fellow teachers are starting to experience a certain amount of burn-out. One of my graduate students, a high school English teacher, wrote in her post for class this week that a student remarked in her reflective writing how much she loved Ms. X's class because it was so easy. Needless to say, my student, Ms. X, was more than a little frustrated - here she is trying to design a class for writers labeled "remedial" that won't intimidate or bewilder them, and while they seem to be learning and improving, she now has this fear that she's simply liked for being the "easy teacher."

Motivation. It's a tricky concept in writing classes, because let's face it, unless you're teaching a creative writing workshop, most students aren't enrolled in a writing class because they *want* to be there. They're fulfilling a core curriculum requirement or a major requirement, or, however grudgingly, acknowledging that they need to improve their writing skills. But even that last motivation isn't much motivation, at least not from the perspective of a teacher who also loves to write, as so many of us English teachers do.

How do we motivate students? I suppose the first step is realizing that we may have to redefine "motivation." Students are probably not going to develop the same passion for writing that led us all to be English teachers, or else the world would suddenly be filled with English teachers (since every college freshman takes English). But we can motivate students to be interested in their topics, if we give them some freedom of choice and express an interest in what they have to say; we can motivate them to improve their writing, if we offer substantial feedback that engages their ideas instead of only commenting on their errors.

A larger problem may be motivating students to care about learning. The resistance I feel from many of my students, whether freshmen or seniors, whether basic writers or advanced composition students, is a resistance to engaging in the difficult intellectual work of college at all. Students don't want to come to class, don't read the assigned material, don't follow simple instructions for completing homework assignments, don't turn work in on time - or at all. Now, I'm painting "students" with a broad brush, because I have some excellent, engaged students in all of my classes every semester. But I also have many who simply don't want to work, and I get fed up pretty quickly with being the person in the room who is putting forth the most effort. I say this problem is larger because it's more difficult to solve; its roots go deep into our education system, which seems to turn students off from learning at a young age by focusing on rote memorization and useless knowledge, and which doesn't ask students to really "learn," just to pass standardized tests.

I don't have an answer for the problem of student motivation. I have a feeling Ms. X will be disappointed by that response in class tonight, because it would be wonderful if I, the experienced college professor, could produce a magic pill for curing student laziness. I do have some strategies to offer, but the truth is, I'm not sure we can motivate someone else. At the end of the day, students either want it or they don't. It's our job as teachers to make the material clear, accessible, interesting and challenging - not an easy feat, by any means, since if you analyze that list you'll note that some things, like "clear" and "challenging," are almost directly opposed to one another - but it is not in our power to make students want to learn or want to write. Teachers aren't the only people with agency in the classroom; students have their own agency, and with that agency comes the responsibility to care enough about their educations to work hard, whatever the subject or their opinion of it.