Writing Goals
Goals. Goals are important in all aspects of life; without them, especially in this busy part of the world that we live in, people tend to focus on just completing the tasks in front of them and not on reaching their desired destination—whatever that destination may be.
Goals are particularly important when trying to achieve something “big,” such as becoming a better writer. To ensure that you see goals such as these come to fruition, it is important to create small related goals along the way.
I believe there is an art to setting and reevaluating goals, and for the last ten years, I have been helping my writing students understand and master that art. I help them carefully craft very specific monthly writing goals—ones that are related to what they are currently working on with writing (i.e., prewriting or drafting)—and then I check in with them weekly regarding those goals and reevaluate the goals with them monthly.
Below are writing goals that some of my writing critique students currently have or have recently had. The possibilities are endless …
Make sure that my topic sentence and supporting details are “working together.”
Ensure that I am using academic versus informal wording.
Make sure that I write all of my supporting details in note format.
Anticipate my readers’ questions and answer them in my writing.
Make sure that all of the supporting details in my prewriting document are listed in a logical sequence.
Make sure that all of my sentences are grammatically correct and punctuated correctly.
Ensure that all of my sentences are cohesive and connect well with one another.
Look for opportunities to combine very closely related information in adjacent sentences into one sentence.
Focus on the last sentence that I wrote before writing my next one.
Try to come up with multiple-word transitions.
Ensure that I add enough thoughts, feelings, emotions, dialogue, etc., to my writing to bring it to life.
Delete unnecessary wording from my writing so that my readers don’t have to sort through it while reading my writing.
Utilize my time during my critique classes efficiently.
After I “finish” a round of revisions, read my prewriting document or draft from top to bottom two times.
Consistently submit my first round of weekly revisions by my assigned day.
When I first started having my students have monthly writing-related goals, I had no idea how invested each one of the students would become in creating, tracking, and reevaluating their goals—it has been truly rewarding for me to celebrate alongside them when they achieve their current writing goals and believe in them and cheer them on as they set and seek to achieve new writing goals for themselves.
~ Christina Caputo
Founder & Owner of ★ W O R D S