Metacognition to Learn How to Write Texts at School and to Develop Motivation to Do It

Abstract

This chapter presents a study carried out in four several final year elementary school (for pupils of 10/11 years old ) and two college classrooms (12 to 14) during a period of six years and its different theoretical references. The aim was to teach pupils how to write narrative texts while developing motivation for this task. Metacognition was chosen as a tool for learning because it is at the same time: (1) an efficient strategy to manage a task throughout, by the pupils using self-control over their own activity (through the processes of forward planing, autoregulation/monitoring and evaluation) which requires awareness of activity, meta-knowledge of the task and especially a knowledge of the "evaluation criteria" (which describe what is the aim to be achieve) and of the "procedural criteria" (which describe how one can manage to write narrative texts)., and (2) a good way to develop motivation, throughout the development of self-concept, the knowledge of oneself as a learner, the feeling of self-efficacy and internal locus of control. We think that: (1) this metacognitive learning needs several conditions we explain and describe; (2) using metacognitive strategy will be really possible for pupils if they can construct themselves the two types of criteria, and (3) one of the main condition is that this work can't be done by the pupils alone, they must be help systematically to do it by the teacher. So we had to define this sort of help (ie what he has to aim and how) by the reference to the notion of mediation and tutoring. So, after an account of the research - theoretical references, work hypothesis, action plan and conditions of implementation, modalities and content of evaluation - we present the different steps of the modelisation we carried out after six years of practising in several forms.