30 English Journal 100.1 (2010): 30–36 Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher Te authors closely examine methods and rationale for creating efective group assignments that motivate and challenge students. Motivation Requires a Meaningful Task moved the desks together. We need to create mean- ingful tasks that are tailored to the developmental, academic, and social needs of students. The Value of a Meaningful Task Without question, adolescents favor group work as a tool for learning and socializing, but only when particular elements are in place. A useful device for ensuring that all are present is the TARRGET framework (Ames): Task, Autonomy, Recognition, Resources, Grouping, Evaluation, and Time. Task refers to the nature of the learning activity itself, designed to be interesting and challenging, and paired with useful Resources. Autonomy also plays an important role, as adolescents are motivated when they have a voice in decisions and choices. Recogni- tion and Evaluation are related to one another and refer to the opportunities students have to both offer and receive each. Finally, adolescents in the Carole Ames study preferred working with others in Groups, with the teacher’s Time devoted to pro- viding help and encouragement. The task challenge is central to creating a mo- tivating environment. While there is a certain in- tuitive logic to reducing difficulty in order to keep students motivated, the evidence among adoles- cents is quite the opposite. Developmentally, a mark of adolescence is the pleasure one takes in ap- proaching a challenging task (Hektner and Asakawa). Even the seventh graders in Patricia O’Connell Schmakel’s study said they wished that they had been assigned “harder work, more work, and mental work” (743). But classroom tasks must otivation has long been viewed as a key element of learning (e.g., Guth- rie and Wigfield). A study of over 300 high school juniors and seniors demonstrated that motivation was at least as pre- dictive of achievement in a subject as was intelli- gence (Steinmayr and Spinath). Among younger students, motivation is a linchpin to learning, even at a time developmentally when overall motivation for schoolwork is in decline, bottoming out at the seventh-grade level (Wigfield and Eccles). While there are many factors that might explain this de- cline (i.e., changes in the structure of the school day, developmental changes regarding affiliation and belonging), as a result teachers too often find themselves assigning less-rigorous tasks designed to placate disenchanted students. However, differences between children and adolescents are pronounced, especially in the ways they interact with one another. In particular, ado- lescents increasingly turn to their peer groups for validation and support. The interplay between mo- tivation and development provides middle school and high school English teachers with the unique ability to capitalize on this. In our high school En- glish classrooms, we do this daily through collabora- tive learning. The energy and motivation that occur when students are engaged in productive group work result in meaningful learning. Students, even those who routinely drag themselves through the school day, find reasons to read, write, discuss, and create when in the company of like-minded peers. However, we have also learned through experience that motivation doesn’t occur simply because we’ve M