To help you decide what you want to set as a personal writing goal for the next two months I am compiling a list below. Feel free to add to that list if you see that I missed something. Remember, YOU are responsible for working on your writing goal independently. You will be graded based on a piece of writing from before you began working on your goal and your most current piece of writing at the end of the two month goal time. You will be asked to provide strategies that you worked with, reflections on your progress etc in order to justify your independent work towards achieving success.
Possible Writing Goals:
Writing Stronger Leads
Using figurative language to add style to writing
Replacing telling with elaborate dialogue
Developing dialogue by using dialect
Showing events unfold instead of telling the reader that they occurred
Elaborating on main ideas
Including sensory details to make writing more visual
Focusing on specific detail and evidence instead of general support
Organizing paragraphs
Utilizing transitions or transitional language
Writing strong clinchers that drive home a point or finish with style
Generating Ideas
Generating supporting detail
Using strong active verbs
Incorporating adages into writing
Using adjectives/adverbs to expand writing and not to weigh it down
Utilizing allusion to build context into writing
Creating analogies
Anecdotes
Writing in different tones
Characterization
Avoiding cliches
Varying Sentence Structure
Varying sentence length
Using connotation to develop tone/mood etc
Elaboration in general
Using concrete examples to elaborate
Using clear explanation that is not boring
Using researchable facts to add authority to writing
Wordplay such as euphemisms
Expanding moments to slow pace and build suspense etc
Extending metaphors
Using quotations effectively
Adding flashback for style and interest
Foreshadowing in all forms of writing
Using fragments correctly (for effect)
Hooking the reader
Playing with humor in all writing
Including idioms
Writing using implication
Irony
Creating strong Magic 3's to help elaborate and add style
Building motif
Working with paradox
Using setting to builid mood etc
Working towards poignancy
Avoiding redundancies
Using repetition to emphasize emotion or strengthen points
Using clauses to add refinement to writing
Building writing vocabulary
77 comments:
I think I could work on expanding moments to slow pace and build suspense because my writing pieces always seem shorter than others. I also am not too good at thinking about ideas and if I explode more moments, I won’t have to think as much because I will fill up the paper with better writing and not regular, more boring writing. I don’t use enough description and this will help more.
I think all these goals will help people see all the categories they can improve on. This way they can look at the topics they normally wouldn't think of and realize they aren't that good at it. This can help people's writing be more interesting, too.
I have to do better on a lot of things but all of them are posted already. This is a great thing to tell us Mr. Horvath because we all know we have problems with our writing. Also, we all know that we want to have a more interesting writing piece. Anyways, the most important thing I need to improve on is be more confident when I talk, making my writing smoother, and making it more interesting.
There are many things that we can do to imprvove our writing.No writting piece if perfect, but some may come very close.Writing a perfect writing piece is very hard and takes a lot of time beacsue there are so many things that have to be included.Personally i have to work on my topic and making it more interesting.I seem to use the first idea that comes into my head weathera its a great topic or a horriable topic.
wow! This is some list. I think that its good that you are forcing us to have a goal. A lot of teachers dont do this and just eaxpect your writing to get better but when we are not given stratagies it is hard to do so. I think this will really help to improve my writing and make it more interesting to read.
I think that the writing goal for a marking period is a really good idea. My goal was brainstorming, to get more ideas faster. I have lots of trouble finding what id like to write about and itll take me forever to finally pick a topic. Over the marking period, i think ill get much better at this problem.
All of these things I think I can do better on. I can do most of them but I would like to have a chance to improve on all of them so I can become a better writer. I think I will probably get the hang of it by this year(hopefully) and be able to get a good grade on my writing pieces.
i wanna work magic three more because i think it will help me become a better writter
I wanna work on Idea Generation. Sometimes I never can think of what to right and this would help me.
I need to work on showing not telling because last year and other years my teachewrs would always write show don't tell on all my papers. Also, I need to work on my writing vocabulary. These would help me do better on writing pieces.
I need to work on having stronger leads because it will make my writing better and keep my reader interested.
A goal I have to try work on is characterization. I am good at developing and expanding on a plot but I don't develop my characters. I need to write my stories so my characters are developed and my plot rolls along with it. This writing goal period is an excellent idea and it should help everyone become a better writer.
I think a writing goal for the marking period is a really good idea. I know that when I write, there is a bunch of things that I can improve on. For example, I have trouble coming up with ideas for stories. Now that I have a goal to work at, I hope tp improve on brainstorming!
i think i need to work better on exciting leads because if i worked really hard on a writing peice, and the lead is bad and no one wants to read it, its kind of like i worked so hard for nothing.
I'm good at a lot of those goals but some aren't so good. Like using figurative language and strong leads. my goal is when we write a story think of the topic then write down a bunch of leads I can use and some metaphors and similes and more that I can include in my story.
That was a big list, but it was good. Its showing me things that i can inprove on to make my writing better.
wow, thats a lot of stuff. i think i want to improve on replacing telling with elaborate dialogue. mosty imes i just tell what happened, instead of it actually happening.
I think that having a writing goal is a very good idea because it helps you work on something you aren't very good at and makes your writing piece better. This list also tells you that you can never have a perfect writing piece with all of those goals perfected so everyone has to have at least 1 goal. Having these goals will definatley help people write better and have people think of improving things that they never thought about. It is a very
good idea.
I also need to work on a lot of things but I think the most important goal I need to work on is elaborating on the main idea because I find myself starting to drift away from my main topic a lot and then it gets a little confusing. When I read the 50 writing goals it helped me find out more things I need to work on so I can work on them next week.
I am going to work on generating ideas. I noticed that if I am writing about a subject I enjoy I tend to write well and enjoy writing. If I am writing about a boring or confusing topic I do not write as well and I do not enjoy writing. It is frustrating when I can't come up with an interesting idea.
I am going to work on making my leads more interesting and makes the reader want to read my story.
I think having a writing goal could be very helpful to many people including me. I usually don't put much effort into my writing because I don't personally enjoy it. However having a writing goal will help me put more effort in focus into my writing and hopefully it will get better.
I think that a writing goal will help me focus on making my stories more action packed, because I write storeis well, It's just that once It comes to the action parts I bore the reader with discription.
I think this is a very effective list. All of those goals will really make a writing piece good. I never knew that varying sentence length would be effective but now when I think of it it makes a writing piece flow a little bit better which is important.
I do think its good that the student can pick his/her own goal because this way they are not forced to work on something that they are already good at. However, I think it will be hard for me to chose something because there are a lot of things I need to work on and Im really indecisive.
I could really work on generating ideas because I can never think of what to write about. But this list will help me a lot because now I know alot of things I can work on that I never knew I could do in the first place.
I could work on sentence format and using stronger vocabulary. These two things would help me being a more effective writter in getting my points across.
There a lot of things I can approve on in the my writing pieces. One thing I'm going to focus on is putting in figurative language to make piece stronger. Figurative language creates a more vivid picture in the readers mind. Another writing goal for myself is to use stronger vocabulary. Using stronger vocabulary makes a story more interesting to read.
i think i need to work on ending my writing. unless i have are great idea the writing just kinda sputters out.
i have a really good feeling about having writing goals because we will were able to recongize what we need to work on
My writing goal for this marking period will be to generate ideas. This will be my goal because in class when we have free write it takes me half the time to come up with an idea. Then once I have an idea I only have a few minutes to write.
Although I've already set a writing goal for this marking period it was before this list was created. Therefore I'm going to consider these ideas and make a new decision. I know my previous goal was one I could improve on but it is possible there is one that would benefit my writing more. I hope this goal improves my writing and that I reach this goal. It should be easy to distinguish a success in my goal because when comparing writing when I set my goal and when I think I've reached the latter should be of much better quality.
I think this is a great list of things that people should improve on! There's so many things on the list that I can't really decide which one or two I should improve. I looked them over and I think my key thing I have to really look at and improve on is magic 3's .
Currently, Im working on "including sensory details to make writing more visual" because I think that my writing is very vague. I can't use imagery correctly, so I think that my writing is not as interesting as it can be.However, I believe that by the end of the month, I would improved.
I think it was a bad idea on Horvath's part to tell us things we could improve on. Part of improving your work is finding out what u did wrong, because of this i have not read what he said you could improve on and decided that i need to work on creating a stronger character.
I want to work on generating topic ideas easier, but I never have time to practice it. Mr.H told me to write short pieces in my own time, but I'm so swamped with homework and activities that I barely get my necessities done. I hope that I will get some time to improve on topic ideas during class, or with any free time I can get, so that I can become a better writer.
I think all these goals are great things to work on. I know i could work on at least half of these goals to make my writing peace more successful.
I think that this is good because it makes us work on just one thing and think only about that one thing.
I think this list could really help everyone improve. I didn't realize how much we should be thinking about when we are writing. By working on some of the things on the list I think I can make my writing a lot more interesting.
10/13/10
I really want to work on generating a good lead because when you have a good lead it makes the reader ask questions and want to make the reader keep reading. I also want to work on using figurative language and adding style to my writing because I want to make my writing more interesting.
I need to work on writing stronger leads, showing events unfold instead of telling the reader that they occurred,focusing on details, elaborating on main ideas,writing strong clinchers that drive home an idea with style, generating ideas, characterization, using clear explanations that are not boring, and hooking the reader. But no matter how amazing of a writer you are, you always have more room to improve.
I would like to improve on all of the these but i need to mostly work on leads, overall detail, paragraph organization, and general support. If i work on these things throughout the year hopefully i will become a good writer. All these things are very important in writing and will improve my writing, and will make people want to read it.
I think it is important to work on all of these goals, because it would make our writing better. But i think that i would like to work mostly on writing stronger leads, using figurative language to add style to writing, and paragraph organization. I think that if i focus on these three goals then my writing will improve a lot.
I absolutely agree with Maya on this, but unlike her I actually read the list. After reading the list, I think it should include "having an actually plot". That's going to be my writing goal. Wowee!
For my writing goal, I am going to do, "writing strong clinchers that drive home a point or finish with style" because I feel that my endings could be stronger if I knew how to improve them. I wish that we had this last year because i feel like it would have been helpful too. This year though, i hope to improve my ending by making them less predicatable, and i think this goal with help me to do that.
My writing goal for this marking period is to use quotes effectivly because when i try to use quotes in my writing it always sounds choppy. I want it to sound smooth
My writing goal for this marking period is to hook the reader better. in most of my stories the hooks are wimpy so I will make them better.
I think im going to make my goal useing figurtive language so that i can make my writing more intersting for the reader.
theres a billion(hyperbole :) ) things/ goals that i can work on as a writerthings like elaborating on details, and finishing with style. i hope Mr.Horvath will improve my writing skills all around.
i need to really improve on elaborating main ideas because my writing pieces are much shorter than anyone elses ive seen. it always makes me fell like i did it wrong. i hope i can fix this.
i would also like to work on writing in different tones because i feel that my stories are all written in one tone and that makes it boring.
I definitely need to improve on generating ideas. I always take a good 15 minutes to just come up with a topic for a story. Or even for persuasive essays I have a really hard time coming up with 3 reasons why. I think that if I improve in this category then my writing will get much better.
Avoiding redundancies
Using repetition to emphasize emotion or strengthen points
I just thought that I would point out that on the list those two ideas are right next to each other.
I really need to improve on writing leads, because i always end up asking a question for a lead. Thats not very creative or interesting.
Writing goals are the most important thing to work on because they just help you get better at writing.
My writing goals are to use better allerterations and personifications. But my main goal is to organize my writing better
My writing goal is to work on imagery because I want to paint a picture in the readers mind
My choice is conclusions. A conclusion should be what ties the writing peice up. it can either make them think about the story, leave them with a question, or leave them feeling full closure.
My choice is exploding moments. I really want to work on this because i want to be able to build more suspense in my story. I really want to do this because it will build up an exciting moment and instantly hook the reader to read more.
I think that I could work on using figurative language to add style to writing because my writing seems blank and somewhat boring. SO I think that this is a good idea because it will solve that issue. It is a good thing to work on because I know how to do them all I have to do is put them into the crucial parts of my writing. That is if i can depict what the crfucial parts are ha ha ha.
This is a great list of writing goals, I have definitely found a ton of goals i'd like to work on, but I have singled out one that I never realized I really needed help on, so anyway, thanks SHorvath for posting all these.
Writing goals are great to work on. they make more value in your writing. I decided to work on brainstorming since I have trouble coming up with good topics to write about and not boring topics that nobody cares about.
my choice was conclusons because i need to get way better at them and make the ending more intersting
My writing goal is to write stronger leads because i struggle with getting the reader hooked to my story and getting the reader to ask questions. Also i feel my lead in every story i write is the least effective part in my story, so i need to work on my leads and make them better.
Writing goals really help with your future wirting. I feel I have gotten a lot better since i have been practicing on my wirting goals. The Examples above I think can help many people in choosing their goals since they are all excellent
I think the writing goal i will focus on is elaborating main ideas, because i think it will improve my writing and make me a better writer as well.
I think writing goals are very good because i need some work on leads and this will be a great way to improve them!
I think this list helps me. My original goal was generating ideas, but now I want to work on paragraph organization, writing good clinchers, and expanding moments.
I think doing these writing goals could really help me, and the two most important ones to me are generating ideas and characterization. These two would be helpful because I always take 10 minutes of thinking to decide what I will write about. Also, I need to give my characters more of a personality and background.
My goal is elaboration. I need to do less show and more tell. I should use more detail to elaborate on my ideas.
I have been working on exploded moments for my writing goal. I think it is really enhancing my writing. Just by adding in some more details I see improvement. I never noticed how much exploded moments can really help writing. I also never really paid attention to them when I was reading but now I am able to find them easily.
Even though i've already chosen something to work on, some of the other choices are interesting too, so i'll be working on making a paradox as a side project
i picked my leads to improve on and i have been working on them and this activity helps a lot in improving them. i can see them getting better
I have chose to work on Generating ideas, and I have come across many great ideas. I am happy that this project was assigned
Are we going to have another writing goal packet?
My struggle was generatating things to write about and making if effective, I have worked on this for while and I noticed it has been getting better. Briana Moniz
Well, what I use to write good stories (and those of you who know me know I am a good writer) is to imagine a world in your mind, put some people in there, give them names, give them backround, and describe them. Then, in your own world, create a problem. What is/are the character(s) going to solve? Then, after the problem, put some drama/dramatic events leading up to the solution, then, when you reach the solution, find a creative way to solve it. That's what I do, and I hope it helped.
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