Promoting Writing and Writing Engagement Through Self-Regulation, Motivation, Effective Instruction and Perezhivanie

Graham’s extensive research on writing has drawn attention to four engagement enablers in writing: self-regulation, motivation, reading-writing connections and effective writing instruction. Following a brief review of Graham’s research on these enablers, we describe Graham’s theoretical work on community and writing in his writer(s)-within writing model. In this theoretical discussion, Graham has taken a sociocultural turn, drawing attention to complex influences on writing and writing engagement derived from personal and social realms. Building on Graham’s theoretical model, we re-conceptualise the personal and social realms in terms of Vygotsky’s notion of perezhivanie, highlighting: (1) the dynamic unity of personal and situated influences on children’s writing; (2) the interdependence of emotion and intellect in writing; and (3) students’ sense-making and self-making during the writing process. We elaborate this theoretical perspective using two cases from our research projects. The first case discusses students’ reflective writing following their experiences during a forest excursion designed as a narrative place-based pedagogy that engages children in imaginative role-play and inquiry activities. The second case was a design-based investigation examining the use of emotionally charged literacy activities to create a dramatic situation to re-engage a group of disaffected students in reading and writing activities. In each case, there is attention to the sense-making, self-making and emotionality arising from experience and its transformation across time/space.

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