KNOWLEDGE, INTEREST, AND NARRATIVE WRITING

One-hundred-six 9th graders and 203 undergraduates wrote a story about baseball for 25 min and then completed a 39-item multiple-choice test of baseball topic knowledge. Students also answered 6 questions about their individual interest in baseball. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that knowledge and interest tests measured different constructs. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed Grade X Interest and Gender X Interest interactions on thematic maturity. Differences favoring undergraduates at low levels of interest disappeared at higher levels of interest, and differences favoring male students at low levels of interest disappeared at higher levels of interest. Topic knowledge predicted thematic maturity and was a better predictor of the interestingness of students' written texts than was individual interest. Implications for the assignment of student writing topics are discussed.