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Next February, this blog will be celebrating its ten-year anniversary! Leading up to it, I’m re-starting a series I tried to do in the past called “A Look Back.” Each week, I’ll be re-posting a few of my favorite posts from the past ten years.

You might also be interested in A Look Back: Best Posts From 2007 To 2009.

I posted this lesson in 2009.  Since that time, I’ve also shared The Best Posts On Students Setting Goals. In addition, Routledge excerpted the expanded lesson plan using this post as its basis and posted it on one of my book’s website – go to Supplemental Downloads to…download it for free.

I’ve been trying to make students setting their goals and evaluating their progress towards achieving them a regular part of my classes this year (see The Best Part Of The President’s Speech & How I’ll Use It). Each week, students complete a goal sheet that includes a reflection piece.

It’s gone relatively well, though sometime both they and I get a bit lazy about them. There’s a fair amount of research highlighting its effectiveness, though, so I’m trying to make it a priority.

To combat this laziness, every few weeks I do a special lesson on goal-setting. I thought people might find what I’m doing this week useful. It’s designed to help students focus between now and the break, and during the holiday break.

I’m first going to break students into pairs to read aloud to each other the Harvard Business School Goal Story (actually, that story is a myth. You can find my replacement reading at Uh Oh, Harvard Goal Study Is An “Urban Legend”). While they’re reading, I’m going to ask them to highlight two phrases they like (not more than eight words each) and then write a one sentence summary of the information. Then they’ll share both their highlighted phrases and sentence summary with another pair of students, and I’ll have a few students share with the entire class.

Next, students will read Michael Jordan On Setting Goals, and will do the same kind of highlighting, summarizing, and sharing.

Then each student will complete a End Of Semester Goal Sheet I’ve created. They then will have the option of sharing which ever goals they feel comfortable sharing with their partner. I’m going to collect them, make copies, and return their sheets to them the following day, and then we’ll review student progress each week. Student will have the option of having their sheets signed by their parents.

After students complete the End of Semester Goal Sheet, each one will make a poster picking one of the phrases they highlighted in the two articles and illustrate it.

We’ll see how it goes. Any feedback is welcome. I’ll certainly write a post letting people know how it goes.