Ready, Set Goal!

A Q&A with Valerie Bolling, author of Goal Setting in the Writing Classroom: Building Student Agency, Independence, and Success

In your new book, Goal Setting in the Writing Classroom, you draw from your own experiences both as an educator and a writer of children’s books, poetry, fiction and nonfiction. How does this book equip teachers to inspire and build confidence in young writers?

I wrote Goal Setting in the Writing Classroom, not only to equip teachers to inspire and build confidence in their student writers, but also because I want teachers themselves to feel confident about teaching writing. Most English Language Arts teachers enjoy what they do, especially reading books with students and having discussions about those books. However, writing is sometimes different. I’ve worked with a number of teachers who don’t feel comfortable teaching writing – providing writing instruction that actually improves students’ writing skills. I hope that this book is a step in that direction.

Though Goal Setting in the Writing Classroom doesn’t provide explicit writing instruction, it does provide a framework for students to set self-selected writing goals that will ultimately help them become better writers. I provide a number of suggestions and tools that teachers can use to guide their students through this process. For example, when students choose their goals, I provide teachers with ideas for what kinds of goals students might choose and what strategies they might use to work on their goals. I also offer sample charts for recording their goals as well as suggestions about how to help students reflect on their progress throughout the year. At the end of the year, students will celebrate all that they have learned and the strides they have made. This celebration will undoubtedly be the greatest manifestation of how, with your guidance and support, students have built their agency, independence, and success as writers.

Student agency is at the heart of this book. What are some parts of the goal-setting process where teachers can lean into student choice?

During every part of the goal-setting process, I encourage teachers to provide students with choice. From the start, students will choose their own goals and the strategies they want to use to work towards them. As their teacher, you will provide your students with ideas and suggestions, but, ultimately, they will make their own choices. They will look at their own writing and feedback on their writing to determine what goals would be best for them to work on. Even when students monitor their progress at different points throughout the year, they get to decide if they feel they have achieved a goal, need to work on it more, or if they want to abandon it all together and perhaps choose another goal. It’s true that you will likely have thoughts about what a student should do, but it is very important, I believe, to let students make these choices for themselves. After all, we want students to be invested in the goals they chose.

Since students will receive feedback on their writing from peers and from you, and will also have writing conferences with you, your input will be taken into consideration as they make their decisions. Giving students agency means trusting them to make smart choices. If they make choices that aren’t the best, they can always revise their goals. That’s part of the learning process. I want your students to feel supported by you but also in control of their learning. This is an essential balance.

Your book includes a series of appendices that help students monitor their goals and give and receive feedback. Do you have a favorite appendix you’d like to tell us about? 

Since there are a number of appendices in the book, it’s hard to pick a favorite. If I were to select one to highlight, it would be Appendix L: Goal Revision Organizer (download a sample below!). As a writer, I believe the most important part of the writing process is revision, and I enjoy putting the pieces of the puzzle together to find the best fit: moving words, sentences, and paragraphs around, deleting words and adding others, and finding the “perfect” word. Therefore, I think a very important tool in this goal-setting work is the one that allows students to revise their goals. This is also another way of giving them choice and agency over their goals and writing.

This revision process can happen a number of times throughout the year but should happen at least two or three times. It’s important to give students the opportunity to evaluate their progress toward their goals and make changes. Being able to change a goal or keep a goal but change the strategies – the way they work on the goal – can be empowering for students.

About the Author