Social motives for writing Psychology: Writing for and with younger readers

This article describes a project that dramatizes two ways in which writing is motivated by readers. A university introductory psy-chology c h s wrote a booklet about psychology fur a Grade 9 English class. The two groups of students began with vastly differ-ent notions ofpsychology, and it was this conflict of belief between writers and readers that motivated the writing in the first place. Later, the younger students made editmrial comments on and responded to the first draft of the booklet. The difference between intended and actual effects now motivated the psychology students to revise their work. The article concludes with a discussion of some issues involved in helping students become more au-thoritative writers. As the special issue of this journal clarifies (Nodine, 1990)) there is growing awareness that a crucial part of leam-ing to be a psychologist is learning to write like one. Psychol