Improving Boys' Attitudes Towards Writing

The focus of this research was to see if choice in topic or form in writing has an effect on the attitudes of third grade boys and if the effect is positive or negative. The reason for focusing the study on writing is because; I struggled with writing my whole life and want to find ways to help other students who struggle with writing. Qualitative data was collected using observation of participating students over a three-week period and responses to interview questions. Students were observed for one hour during the Language Arts portion of the day for a total of nine days. The researcher observed students from two different classrooms, one that offers choice in writing and the other one where choice was not offered. Data was collected, and then coded based on themes seen in the observation and interview data. The data was compared for commonalities and differences and imputed into excel for organization. The researcher was looking to see if the observed behaviors matched the students attitudes about writing. The results showed that students in the classroom where choice was offered exhibited attentive behaviors in class and had positive attitudes towards writing and the students from the class that offered no choice displayed inattentive behavior in class and positive attitudes about writing.