What's in a number? Details!

Today was the last day of the first hour, fifth grade, journal writing goal attempt.   At the beginning of the second quarter we set a goal to write 25,000 words in eight weeks.  That's 25,000 words for 12 students for eight weeks.  The numbers worked out to around 300 words per student, per week.  I don't know if that is a high word count, or not, but it's what I came up with.  Always before I had approached student journal writing by saying just write about the topic.  I have never put a number qualifier on writing.  This was something new to me.   But, I decided to try it. By knowing that they had a number goal to meet, they spent more time trying to add details to add more words.  More details are a good thing. 

My ideas with this goal was to get students to write.  I haven't ever assigned a grade based on a word count.  I do look for quality over quantity.  I know what the research says about requiring a word amount.  However,  I just wanted them to write and maybe get lost in the details, literally.  I wanted them to have some incentive to write more.  I have learned that students do use excuses to not write, sometimes.  

I'm very proud to announce that they met and surpassed their goal.  They wrote almost 27,000 words!  We are celebrating next week!