Setting Goals

During writing class this week, I talked with my students about setting goals. I score their writing on a rubric, so I told them to each choose something on the rubric to be a goal for them during their revision process. When I conferenced with one student, he said, “I’m really good at filling a whole page with writing, so I’m going to choose that as my goal.” I had to explain to him (and to the class) that a goal isn’t something that you are already good at. A goal should be something that you think you can improve in.

When Seth and I started this blog, my goal was to post something every Tuesday at 12:00. Over the summer, that was pretty manageable. Once the school year started, it got harder and harder to meet that deadline. The past few weeks I have written the blog post during my lunch break the day I posted it, and this week I didn’t have anything to post on Tuesday at all.

I considered setting something more manageable as my goal. Maybe every other week or once a month would be something I could do more easily. Then I remembered my students and their writing goals. On a daily basis, I push them beyond the bounds of what they can easily write. Shouldn’t I hold myself to the same standard?

For now, I want to keep my goal as posting a new blog post every Tuesday at 12:00. It is not going to be easy, but if it were easy it would not be a goal. I’m sorry that I missed that goal this week. I anticipate that I will likely miss my goal again. But, if it were something I could do already, it would not be a goal. If I want my students to push themselves, I have to be willing to push myself, too.