Motivating Writers

I am linking up to Jivey for this post.  Check hers out at Ideas By Jivey.  She is looking for ways to motivate writers... which seems to be getting harder and harder as the year comes to a close.  

My kids write two main times during the day.  When they come in, they write in their morning journal (which you can buy at my TPT store!)  My kids can start arriving at 7:30, but the bell doesn't ring until 7:50 (and I don't normally start the day until 8:00) so they have ample time to write in the morning.  At the beginning of the year, its hard for them to write a lot of details, but when I introduced Author of the Day the motivation increased.  I choose three students at random to share each morning.  The class then votes on who they think wrote most like an author (we talk about interesting details, captured the readers attention, etc.). 

The student who is chosen as Author of the Day has their writing displayed on the board for the day.  They also get to sit in the rocking chair during dear time (wow!) and recently I was given these awesome pencils that they also get to use for the day.

The Author of the Day has really motivated my kids during their morning journal time.

As for Writers' Workshop... the kids are pretty self-motivated.  I think that when I share good examples and take pictures of good writing, that motivates them to want to do well.  I don't have any tricks there, just a positive learning environment during writing and lots of great mentor texts :)

Happy Writing!
Annie