Publication Motivates a Vast Majority of the Students Publication is a great motivational tools for many students, involving even those who dont consider themselves to be writers (Lange, 1992) and makes them feel proud of
themselves and what they have accomplished (King & Stovall, 1992). The most striking part of this activity [publishing project] is how virtually all student writers are
motivated to do their very best writing and revising (Graff, 1992). As Ensio & Boxeth (2000), explain, classroom publication motivates many students:
Solomon (1993) and Putnam (2001) reinforce this idea: However they celebrated, they had one thing in commonthe pride of publishing. Even the students who had complained
incessantly about the project didnt have a negative word to say about their finished product. In an e-mail message she sent to Chris Weber, Elinore Kaplan, a high school teacher in Queens, New York describes the impact publishing has in motivating most of her students,
increasing their self-esteem, and filling them with pride:
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Publishing is a Powerful Means of Motivating Revision As Donald Murray (1982) says, writing is rewriting, and revision is the crucial process of making changes throughout the writing of drafts of a piece to make the final draft
congruent with a writers changing intentions (Sommers, 1982; Thomas, 2000). Simply telling students that they are required to revise will not necessarily produce improved
writing (Adams, 1991). Nowhere is the motivation stronger to revise than when student writers write to publish. Both common sense and empirical data support the belief that students who value writing tend to invest more time and energy in it (NAEP Framework, 1998). Publishing causes
students to see their work as valuable, and as a result, they will invest themselves more in their writing when they know it is going to be published (Swartout & Densteadt,
2002; Graff, 1992). For more than twenty years in his teaching career, Chris Weber has worked with more than a thousand students and has observed that their revision efforts
were the strongest when they were writing be published and read by a wider audience. With increased time and energy spent on revising, students revising skills improve, and along with it, their writing. The literature clearly shows that student publications have an impact on increasing students interest and efforts in editing and revising (Conner & Moulton, 2000; Putnam,
2001). Bromley & Mannix (1993) describe publishings motivational value:
Peter Elbow (2002), one of Americas best known writing teachers, explains why publishing is the single strongest way to encourage students to revise and copyedit:
There is increased concern and attention (both by the public and educators) for ensuring that our young people develop mastery of all writing traits, especially conventions
(e.g., spelling, grammar and usage, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing). Andrasick (1993) realizes publication encourages students to edit more carefully: Frequent
publication creates a powerful claim for students to value mechanical conventions. . . . [As] students begin to publish and get feedback from others, they learn to give even
single words the same grooming they give themselves: they comb their prose for the smallest confusions caused by unconventional punctuation. Connors (2000) students reflections show that they were combing their prose:
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Student Publication Raises the Bar for Teachers, too The previous cited literature documents how publishing encourages students to do their very best. With publication, their standards are higher. Like adult writers, students want
to display and share their best work for others for years to come. Swope (2002) explains the impact that publishing had on his teaching efforts:
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