Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Evolution of Lesson Plans: Throwback Thursday



I write out my lesson plans, always have. It started in a journal and quickly moved to a computer--my handwriting can be a mess. I've taught at three schools and worked under five principals. Very few have asked teachers to submit lesson plans. Ones that have asked, use them for committee notebooks, but don't seem to read them.

The Lesson Plan Book I discovered on the book shelves served as a student tool. I made it for students to check after an absence. I kept it because it was the first time I'd documented an entire year and organized it one place. How I plan has changed significantly since 1998.  In 1998 I planned a quarter at a time usually the entire first semester was finished prior to the start of school. Once school started and I learned a bit about students, I got specific writing out plans week by week, day by day. Here's a monthly map:



Classics before Christmas, that's what I should have called this unit. I remember a near revolt over De Crevecoeur's "Letters to an American Farmer." In 1998, works in the public domain were just beginning to show up online. I could connect, dial up mind you, via the Florida Information Resource Network (FIRN, established in 1995). I believed in "whole works." I eschewed excerpts from the textbook. Have you ever asked a student to read De Crevecoeur's letters in their entirety? I printed it out. By Christmas Juniors were finished with me. Definitely revolt material. Have you seen De Crevecoeur's letters?

Once I had the months in mind, I planned week by week for each prep. In 1998 I create plans in a table using Claris Works on an Apple 2e.




Structures, instructional routines are clearer. Writing prompts at the start of class worked as review, choice was limited in 1998.

By the year 2000, I'd learned basic web editing with a WYSIWYG editor, so my plans went digital.You can peruse them here.


Tables on a webpage? So passé, a definite throwback. In terms of instruction, reading workshop is solidly established. Then, as now, it was a regular part of our class time. We wrote daily but for extended time on Wednesdays; students' choices were limited. Writing workshop, like push-ups, take practice and work over time; now writing workshop time is structured around mini-lessons and mentor texts.



In 2000, I taught on a block schedule. My school ran a four by four block, but we decided as a faculty to give ninth graders one class all year. Ninth graders did not switch at the semester in this one class as happens to all classes on a four by four schedule. Luckily that one class was English. I did my best teaching when I had students every day for 90 minutes for a full 180 days.

Now I keep my lessons plans in  Google spreadsheet. I post a link to the plans on my class webpage, so that students can access them at any time (English I page and AP Language).


 Eventually the class website will change. I'm between programs right now and not updating it as frequently as I used to, but that's another post. The format has changed. Now plans are written in the "common board configuration" language teachers are expected to used. I still print the lesson plans out weekly, but I keep them on a clipboard, instead of a notebook, in class. I plan a week at a time (though I have a big picture of  a unit in my mind) even then the plans change depending on what happens in class. One thing is certain, as I learn my instruction and how I plan for it shifts.

15 comments:

  1. Wow, there is certainly nothing atavistic about your evolving lesson plans. This essay fascinated me, even though I've been teaching upper elementary for years and now K-5 intervention.
    At one school I had to file my weekly lesson plans (Excel template I made) with the office to check out at the end of the school year.
    Sometimes I might refer to sections for planning the next year, but usually the students and sometimes the situation would be different so I wrote them fresh.
    When I learned writing workshop and G.L.A.D. (guided language acquisition design for ELD) then I began to create 6 week and monthly units of study ~~ all in spite of the three structured, scripted state reading programs I have survived.

    This piece shows something so aesthetic about the art of teaching...
    I love that you used writing for review, assessment in a sense, and gave a day for students to write longer.

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    1. Thank you, Laura,
      I'm delighted you see art in my work in the classroom. I'm going to have to compare G.L.A.D. to what I've called word study or explicit teaching of vocabulary.

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  2. So interesting to see how your planning process have evolved alongside the content! The visual shots here really helped me follow along in your thinking... (I'm super-impressed that your students can access your lesson plans. I wonder how many of them take advantage of that?)
    :)
    marika

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    1. Hi, Marika,
      Quite a few students take advantage of the lesson plans online and other things I post online for class. It always surprises (and delights) me when a student will come to class after an absence ready to go because he or she looked online, printed what they needed and did the prep work. It takes time to build that independent spirit though.

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  3. I loved peeking in on your lesson plan journey! I still have the binders I used in my first years of teaching, just so I can always look back and see how I've grown. It's fun to see that other people think about this, too!

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    1. I would love to get a peek at your binders! What a rich resource that is for you as a teacher (and writer).

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  4. I have lots of questions surrounding lesson planning and how it's done. I have always hand written my plans until January of this school year. I found a lesson plan "website" that I am using. It's not great, but I'm finding that online planning is easier than I thought. I've "heard" (on twitter) of teachers using Evernote for lesson plans. I like the google doc you are using, too, especially since our school is using google docs.

    I haven't sat down and thought about how my planning has evolved over the years. It certainly has! You've given me something to consider. Thanks, as always, Lee Ann for making me think about something in a new way!

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    1. You're welcome, Michelle,
      Thank you for sharing your thinking! There are so many ways we can plan. I'm curious about the website you're using. I know some of our math teachers have used the textbook website to aid in planning. I need to make better use of Evernote. I have an idea in mind that I can create my unit binders as plans or binders in Evernote, but I haven't taken that on as a project yet.

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  5. Thank you for sharing your process of lesson planning and how it's evolved. I usually have a long range plan in mind, but not nearly as organized on paper as yours. I do put detailed weekly plans on my blog for students and parents. If I'm really on top of things, it also includes links to materials used in class. I'm trying to update and upload the things I use to GoogleDocs.

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    1. Sometimes organization is a blessing and a curse. I, too, like to upload handouts--mostly to Scribd. I don't care for how Google spreadsheets do links, so I'm still working on how to embed links in plans there (though when I used a Google Doc or other program it was quite easy to do).

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  6. Loved seeing the process, and the comments about your evolution, Lee Ann. My planning in the classroom didn't work that way because it was so individualized that some basics were expected, especially as I began to know the general levels to expect of my students, but every year was different & I could only refer back to certain things. I always taught similar processes, in all language arts, and yet when technology became an important part of the learning, that had to be integrated for each student too. It's complicated to share. I liked your work on Google Docs, & still need to use Evernote more. It's a matter of time, isn't it?

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    1. Time is certainly the crux of it. I'd be interested in seeing how elementary teachers plan and assess individually--do you keep track in a big binder or cards for each student. I've rarely glimpsed such processes in my son's classrooms and there is much I could learn from them.

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  7. This was a fascinating peek into your planning! I make weekly tables in Word with activities & expected time, the way I learned in grad school, because it works pretty well for me. Even with the weekly plans, sometimes things change, as you said. I would love to hear more about how you structure writing workshop time, because this is the thing I've struggled with the most this year... still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing with writing, although reading workshop is running pretty smoothly. I had never thought of using Google Docs or Evernote... now I'm wondering, although I'm also wondering what the advantages are of using those for planning instead of using Word. I guess Evernote plans could be searched and tagged, which would be cool! Hmmm...

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    1. Thanks, Jennifer,
      I used to use tables in Word too (I love charts and tables), but they lose their shape and format once uploaded to Google docs unless I saved them as PDFs first. Tedious. I like to keep my plans online so that students and parents have access to them. Also it helps me be transparent, something I care about. Have you read Penny Kittle's book Write Beside Them? Fantastic resource for thinking through and structuring writing workshop.

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  8. Thanks so much for sharing! Right now I am just creating a monthly calendar outline then having a lesson plan document. At the end of the semester's I have printed them out and put them in a binder to save. I am a brand new teacher so I am trying to save EVERYTHING so that I can tweek it all over the summers and end up with some good unit plans :) Do you have any current website suggestions? I use google Doc to save my items but it would be great to have an actual program.. maybe even one with an app? haha now I'm thinkin'!

    http://edfact.blogspot.ca

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