Four Reasons Twitter Can Motivate Students to Write

You're an English teacher and you've assigned writing tasks before. Sometimes you read student writing and it feels like the sun will shine forever. There are students who love writing. They blossom when they are given an assignment and you can see the evidence of your teaching in their writing.

But my bet is that these are the less common scenarios when it comes to reading student writing in the secondary classrooms. My bet is that more often, you read writing that seems forced, cookie-cutter, and just painful. You can tell they put it off to the last minute and just wrote the first thing that came to their minds, with little thought for revisions.

It's frustrating because you want students to see the value in writing. You want them to know that they are capable of the task. You want them to be able to use writing as a tool for communication, for expression.

So how can we help students produce genuine writing? How can we get them excited about it?

Well I have an answer to these questions. Just think about who your students are. They probably spend a lot of time online, whether it's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or even just web browsing topics they love. So why are students so motivated to read and write in these mediums? Probably because they get to read and write what they want! And it feels real to them. And people notice them. And it's fun.

So I'm just going to focus on one of these online mediums. Twitter.

Twitter is becoming pretty popular in the professional world. Yes, there are numerous accounts dedicated to dirty jokes, "White Girl Problems," and funny puns. But despite this, Twitter is a very efficient and productive way of sharing ideas and getting the word out about events.

If we use Twitter in the classroom, specifically for writing instruction, students will be more motivated to write genuinely. How so you ask?

Well, in my research on motivating students to write, I have found that there are four major elements that cause students to see writing as important in their lives. I'll show you these elements by including tweets about them from the professionals that discuss them. Then I'll talk about how Twitter can foster each of these four elements.

1. Audience

Dr. Kajder (2014) points out that Digital Media is a way that students connect to the world outside of the classroom. Too often students feel that their work is pointless, because it will not be read by anyone other than their teacher and maybe some peers. According to Kajder, when students see that their writing has the potential of being noticed by the real world, they see tasks differently. They are no longer bored by the prospect of putting lots of effort into something that will sit in a filing cabinet. They are no longer overwhelmed by trying to impress their teacher. They know how to converse on social media because it's their language.

I found that Janet Atkins (2011) reiterates Kajder's point about the importance of writing for a real audience. Atkins makes a valid point about student expectations. Students are used to conversing online with friends, or tagging their favorite celebrities, to receive responses. So students expect their writing to be read and to mean something in the real world. 

Twitter and Audience 

Twitter users have an audience. Their audience is whoever is following them, and whoever views the hashtags used in their tweets (which can range into thousands of other users). One hashtag can link a tweet to thousands of other tweets about the same topic.

So basically, when people use Twitter, they are putting their ideas out there for people to read. Their words, their own writing, is viewable. Suddenly, a normal teenager is a contributor to a world of ideas. His voice is heard.

This is why Twitter can be used in the classroom to motivate students. Having a real audience for their writing is an element that motivates students to write genuinely.

2. Choice

Simmons and Page's theory (2010) is basically that teachers do not trust that students want to learn. Because of this, teachers do not give students "curricular freedom." This lack of trust does not empower students to learn and it just becomes a struggle to get students to produce quality work. Simmons and Page believe that if students are given the power to make choices about their learning, they will begin to trust themselves with their own education and thus be more motivated to complete tasks. 

Applying Simmons and Page's theory to writing instruction tells us that we probably need to allow students to make some choices about what they write. If they are writing about things they care about, they will be more dedicated to the task and produce genuine writing. And I found that Jeff Wilhelm and Michael W. Smith (2006) reiterate this point about student power and choice. 

Wilhelm and Smith studied the literate lives of 49 young men and found that the same things that motivated them in their hobbies, such as sports and music and friends, motivated them in their literacy skills (p. 30). One of the factors they found that contributed to the motivation of these students to complete assignments was control. Students claimed to be more motivated to perform to their best abilities when teachers gave them some power over their work. Students get to choose what they listen to, what sports they play, and who their friends are, so why shouldn't they be able to have some choice over what they write about?

Twitter and Choice 

Twitter users get to choose what accounts they follow, what they retweet, and what to include in their profile. All of the writing and sharing they do on Twitter reflects their interests. And what is interesting about Twitter is that it allows you to dedicate your time spent on the social media site to issues, ideas, and events that you care about. 

This is a second reason Twitter can be used in the classroom to motivate students to write. As long as they are meeting classroom requirements, such as tweeting a certain amount and gathering sources and ideas, students can choose what they focus on in their writing. Twitter can motivate students because it gives them opportunities to choose what they learn about, and what they will write about. 

3. Immediate Pay-off 

Wilhelm and Smith also provide some useful insight when it comes to the third element. They claim that students really want to see the results of their work. Writing isn't something many students would choose to do for fun, but they can see the benefits when they get to witness a response or some type of immediate result. Students are not motivated to write genuinely when they know their papers will just sit in a filing cabinet where nobody will see them and where they will never be read again. This ties back to audience, which is one aspect that gives students that immediate pay-off. When there is somebody reading and responding to their writing, students are more motivated to write genuinely. 

Wilhelm and Smith make a valid point about the topics students write about. When they get to have a voice about something that matters to them, they are more motivated to write. Even more so, when they have the ability to actually contribute to real discussion on that topic of choice. So here audience, choice, and immediate pay-off all tie together. With a real audience, students are contributing to an actual discussion of a topic they chose to focus on. Plus they get to see the effects of their own writing on this discussion. What they say matters, and they can see that as soon as they write it. 

Twitter and Immediate Pay-off

Tweets are instant and as soon as they are composed they appear on the user's timeline, as well as on the timeline of all of their followers. They even appear under hashtags and are discoverable if other users type in key words to the search bar. 

When Twitter users tweet they may be retweeted, and their tweets may be replied to or favorited. If they are speaking up by tweeting about popular issues, it is likely that other users will respond in some way. This result of composing tweets can be considered immediate pay-off because users get to see the effect their writing and idea sharing has on others. 

So because of its immediate pay-off element, Twitter can be used to motivate students to write genuinely. Students want to see the results of their writing, and Twitter is a place where they can see responses from people in the real world, not just marks from a teacher that don't really motivate students to improve, but only to complete assignments for the sake of completing them. 

4. Identity Expression

Linda Laidlaw (1998) discusses how too often schools define students based on the expectations of teachers. There is only room for one type of identity in schools, and that is the identity that meets the requirements of the curriculum. Usually this is a very contrived type of identity, one that does little for students. Students feel that in order to succeed they have to complete a checklist of items that make them good students. If their own individuality does not meet those requirements, then they must suppress that genuine identity expression. Teachers tell students what to do and how to do it, and students may or may not listen. Laidlaw seems to think that this is not productive and that the way to change this is to allow students more room for identity expression. 

Laidlaw focuses her theorizing about self-expression of identity on storytelling. When students write they should be allowed to tell their stories. This may be through writing about issues they care about, narratives about their lives, or just expressing their opinions. If they are not allowed to do this in school, the classroom is just a place they will robotically conform to in order to pass. Or they won't try and conform at all and therefore fail. 

Kajder (2014) emphasizes this idea about identity expression but focuses on helping students do it through digital media. Not only should students be able to express their own identities in writing, but they should be able to consider themselves part of a classroom community that expresses ideas together. Students can use Twitter and attach a class hashtag to their tweets so that all of their ideas are connected and accessible. 

(I'd like to add a side-note to this element from my own experience with students. I found through observation and writing samples that students are more likely to write when they are given opportunities to write about their own lives. They enjoy writing prompts that deal with identity. Their most genuine writing is produced when they can express themselves. If you want more information on my own research leave me a comment under this post!) 

Twitter and Identity Expression

Twitter allows users to create a small profile of themselves. Users can include where they are from, their hobbies, what they like to discuss, or pretty much anything they want. Their profile becomes their Twitter identity. It is where other users go to find out more about them. If they want their identity to be a certain thing, if they want to express a particular side of themselves, they can make it visible through their profile and through the things they tweet about. 

When it comes down to it, Twitter is a space for identity expression. Avid tweeters have their Twitter identity. They are sports fanatics, political activists, inspirational quoters, recipe sharers, music lovers, professional, the list goes on. Twitter allows this because there is no single type identity that the medium favors. To be heard, you just have to speak up. 

So because it has elements of identity expression, Twitter can be used to motivate students to write genuinely. Students are more motivated to write when they can express who they are instead of being hindered from discussing what they want (my own research shows examples of this). 

Tweet Away

The professionals say it all. These elements of student motivation are critical if teachers want student writing to mean something. So I believe that using Twitter in the writing classroom can provide students with opportunities to foster all of these elements, and therefore become motivated to produce genuine writing! 

- Caroline