In your first few years of teaching, you are just trying to hang on! Am I right?? I'm currently in my 5th year, and I finally feel like I don't have to stress about planning. This is all due to unit-by-unit planning. If you are a daily planner who feels a lot of stress because of that, I'd highly recommend trying unit-by-unit planning. Here's the breakdown of how to achieve this and pros/cons.
Steps to Achieve:
1. First thing you'll need is a calendar for the entire year, so you can visually see your year. Here is a free download of the 2019/2020 school year. I'll update this yearly in my free resources folder (see the tab at the top of my blog). You'll need this so you can pace out how many days you have to teach each unit. This is necessary in order to achieve successful unit planning.
2. Cross off all of the days that you know you won't be at school or have the day to teach (state testing, late/early starts, etc). I give a vocab quiz every 9 weeks on our late start, so I know that won't be an instruction day. Don't forget about things like midterms/finals and the last day of school. I leave about a week open at the beginning of school also for all that beginning of the year stuff!
3. Think about how many days you typically need to teach each unit (look back at past planners). I find that I usually need 3 weeks for poetry/short stories and 5+ weeks for a novel. It doesn't matter how long or little you take! It's up to you, just make smart decisions for yourself.
4. Highlight and color coordinate (these highlighters are the Zebra Mildliners) the days that you have selected for each unit.
5. Write out on a piece of paper 1-? (however many days you have to teach the unit. And separately write out what activities/assessments you MUST have in the unit.
6. Sit down and plan on that piece of paper where you will put activities and assignments. For me, I usually allow in-class reading, so in step 5 I'll write down "8 days of reading" or however long it will take. Think about beginning activities, when things will be due, and major assessments. Sometimes we will forget that students need these the most to get excited about the topic and then show their learning!
7. Make the resources necessary for all of those days. This can be very time consuming, but typically, you'll already have a lot of this from past years. However, if you have an extra day, you'll be encouraged to come up with a new interesting assignment. And if you have too many days, you'll learn how to choose which ones actually assess students learning or hold significance to their lives. (I prefer to print things in a workbook format for my students, so that they know what is to come, and it also gives me another reason to be super organized and prepared.) You can do this on most school printers using the booklet feature. Here is an example of a workbook in my TpT Store.
8. Bask the glory of having planned an entire unit!
Pros and Cons
Pros: you're planned for usually around 3-5 weeks in advance, which gives you more time for future planning and grading! You can easily move around days and you never feel like you have nothing planned for the day! You can RELAX on the weekends! Students can receive information far in advance and know what's expected of them.
Cons: snow days and other things that cancel school or alter plans can make it a little difficult, but things are easily moved. When it comes to reteaching, you might need to scrap a day or move it. It takes a lot of pre-planning to achieve this.
I really can't think of any cons that would stop you completely from achieving this! After you've taught at least a year, you're fully capable of this! (That first year is almost just a smorgasbord of chaos and learning! Soak it in - you'll make it out alive, promise!)
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments. And if you'd like advice on specific units and classes, please feel free to message me on Instagram or email me at englishelixirtpt@gmail.com. I'm happy to help!