Boys' Writing Genre Choices

Abstract

Teaching students according to their learning styles has become one of the most accepted approaches for effective instruction. The purpose of this action research was to discover what elementary boys do when given the opportunity to choose the genre of their own writing within writing workshop. More and more boys have resisted writing instruction and have slowly opted not to view themselves as writers. Boys' and girls' brains are structured differently and need different methods of instruction. Choice has been a motivating factor when encouraging boys to engage in any task. This is certainly true of writing. Students should view themselves as writers, so this study sought to find which genres were most enjoyable for males to write and how the opportunity to choose the genre changed participation in writing tasks. Six third grade boys were given opportunities to choose their genres and were observed during pull-out writing instruction. The participants also completed questionnaires to express thoughts about boys' writing and aspects of writing related to genres. Each participant was also interviewed by the researcher in order to elaborate on actual writing choices. The researcher gathered qualitative information about each student's decision-making process as each participant chose a genre and crafted his writing.