The Power of Choice: Supporting Reluctant Male Writers Through the Incorporation of their Interests in Literacy

Abstract

The level of student engagement in a writing task was explored through the power of choice. A middle school male student was given the option to choose the topic of an informational piece of writing that he completed over a period of ten lessons. Each lesson, the student’s engagement level was recorded using a self-created engagement chart. Once all of the data was collected, a process of triangulation to analyze the information collected through student interviews, the quality of the student’s writing, and the student’s engagement level. The findings from this study suggest that allowing student choice of topic not only engages a student in the writing task and process, but also helps improve student writing quality.