The heart of a good lesson is a good lesson plan. And that lesson plan should be part of a well-crafted unit. This section provides sample templates for lesson and unit plans.
UNIT PLANNING:
I highly recommend Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (Alexandria: ASCD, 2005), which explains in great detail how and why to plan backwards. Wiggins has been working as a lead consultant on the NJ Dept. of Education Standards Clarification Project, and many of the materials on the State’s Website bear his fingerprints. Particularly if you teach in NJ, you will want to check out the links below.
In the Download Zone, you will find a Unit-planning Template that I adapted from the original UbD model. It is user-friendly, and the “activities” section includes three different tiers to sort your planned activities based on their level of rigor (Many thanks to the folks at Greater Newark CS for this idea!). You will also find a Curriculum Overview Template to map out the year's units.
See also the Sample 10th English Curriculum Overview and Sample 10th English Poetry Unit, both contributed by Susan Chenelle at University Academy CHS (Thanks, Susan!).
Next step: Check out Curriculum Resources & Links!
LESSON PLANNING:
Here is what I believe about lesson plans:
- They should present RPM (Rigorous, Purposeful, measurable) objectives (see “RPM Objectives” section of this Website), with a clear path for how to reach those objectives.
- They should be simple, yet comprehensive enough to ensure that the teacher will reach the stated objectives.
- Teachers should receive timely constructive feedback on their plans as needed.
This lesson plan template is based on best practices from various schools: GENERIC Lesson Plan Template (Thanks to Cynthia Millinger of Charter School Startup for her help on this one). Here are sample lesson plan templates from various schools: ACHS Lesson Plan Template and NLCS Lesson Plan Template. Here is a sample lesson plan: ACHS Sample Lesson Plan,contributed by Sam Cicero (Thanks, Sam!).
I am continuing to collect sample lesson plan templates. If you have one to share, please send it to me at sarahtantillo@literacycookbook.com. Many thanks to Mary Jo McKinley at Academy Charter HS and Paula White-Bradley for their early contributions.
IN THE DOWNLOAD ZONE for Templates for Lessons & Units:
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