Revising your Goals: Suggestions, Notes, and Grading Rubric

1. Suggestions

Here are some suggestions to help you revise your goals for the fall 2012 semester. Please read these carefully, and feel free to ask your teacher for help if you have any questions.

Suggestion 1: Make sure you only have one goal, not two or three.

• Many of you wrote two or even three goals for one time period. If you did this, you can do one of two things: 
• Choose one of the two goals and delete the other goal;
• OR
•  Separate the goals into two separate goals and write different steps for each goal. 
• Example
• Many of you wrote that you want to improve "speaking and writing" in the next 8 weeks. These are TWO DIFFERENT GOALS. Choose your weakest skill and make this your specific goal. 

Suggestion 2: Make your steps for each goal more specific.

• The steps you write for each goal should be specific.
• Here is an example of a step that is too general:
• Goal: Improve my reading
• Step 3: read more
• How can this be improved? 

Suggestion 3: Try to include more than two or three steps. 

• If you only include two or three steps for a goal, you probably need more. Most goals cannot be achieved with only two or three steps. 
• Goal: Get 6 on the IELTS
• Step 1: 
• Learn more academic vocabulary
• memorize 10 new academic vocabulary words each week.
• Step 2: Practice all of my skills
• read more stories
• listen to news 
• speak only English!
• write four paragraphs a week
• Step 3: Read about the IELTS format
• Step 4: Take 5 IELTS practice exams

Suggestion 4: Make sure your steps match your goal. 

• Each step should be related to your goal. 
• Here is an example of a step that is not related to the goal
• Goal: Improve my reading.
• Step 1: Listen to my teacher. 

2. Final Goals Grading Rubric

Criteria	Excellent (4)	Satisfactory (3)	Unsatisfactory (2)
Goals	Student has a specific and attainable short-term, mid-term, and long term goal.	Student has a short-term, mid-term, and long-term goal.	Student is missing short-term, mid-term, or long-term goal.
Steps	Student has written clear, logical steps for each goal.	Student has written clear steps for each goal.	Student has not written clear steps for each goal.
Revision	Student has completely revised previous goals if necessary.	Student has partially revised previous goals.	Student has not revised previous goals.
Final Grade   ___/12x2    =___/24	Comments