Toward a Social Constructivist Reconceptualization of Intrinsic Motivation for Literacy Learning

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Abstract
This conceptual essay critiques current understandings of children's motivation for literacy learning, and argues for a reconceptualization of motivation that centers on the learner as agent in the social construction of meaning. The essay is illustrated with vignettes and examples drawn from two ethnographic studies conducted in whole-language classrooms. Both studies investigated children's perspectives of their own literacy learning processes and their constructs of themselves as readers and writers.