ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the motivations students identify in terms of what engages them in literacy practices. It focuses on what students do outside the classroom where many students talk most explicitly and passionately about motivation. The chapter discusses the distinctions between internal and instrumental motivations before moving on to examine the students' literacy practices in terms of purpose, control, and meaning. It is clear that internal motivation is powerful in ways that instrumental motivation alone is not. Even students who described having internal motivations for school reading and writing assignments also talked about the powerful instrumental motivations of grades and jobs. Emotion certainly plays a role in internal motivation, and desire is perhaps the emotion we most quickly attribute to motivation. Process and control are important in the construction of internal motivations, but so is product.
