Narrative Writing Goals

This is one the best parts of starting a new writing genre...

student self-evaluation and goal setting for their own writing

The idea behind this lesson is that students (especially in grade 6) are given greater ownership and accountability over their own work. By setting their own writing goals, they have achievable and visible goals set for their own writing.

To set our writing goals, students were given their pre-tests back and they had to use the rubric that we created as a class to mark their work. From that, they needed to choose the three areas that they felt they needed to improve upon from the rubric. These areas then were turned into writing goals. As a class, we shared our individual writing goals and  create a class list of the top goals.

The top goals selected by the students for narrative writing were:

1. Have a detailed plan

2. Include a title, orientation, complication, and resolution (and sometimes a cliffhanger)

3. Write in full paragraphs

4. Have lots of juicy language (descriptive and figurative)

5. Be CREATIVE (Is my story exciting to read?)

6. Use a range of punctuation correctly

They are along the left side of the poster. Then, when we work on our group editing session, students add their names (on sticky notes) to the box corresponding to the goal they achieved. They can then go back and revise to ensure they have achieved all these goals in their writing. Students love seeing their name beside each goal and really worked hard because of this.

This strategy relates to the e5 Instructional Model components of engage and evaluate.

- Engage: Teachers provide support for students to create and achieve their learning goals. 

- Evaluate: Students are able to evaluate their progress and achievements. (and in a visual format)