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Procedure: Getting Lesson Plans Written and Submitted on Time in a Way that Makes it Exponentially Easier for Next Year (if your school doesn’t adopt a new curriculum the next year!—smile)

1. Try having a schedule for lesson planning that distributes the planning over the week. Here’s a lesson planning, photocopying, makeup work updating schedule that a teacher suggested to me with my adaptations included.

2. Purchase a portable filing cube that can hold hanging files, such as the one Wal-Mart sells.

3. Purchase 40 hanging files and 40 manila file folders.

4. Label the manila files, “Week 1 Lesson Materials” . . . “Week 2 Lesson Materials” etc. You might want to also label them by 1st 6 weeks, 2nd 6 weeks, or 1st Quarter, 2nd Quarter, etc.

5. Drop a copy of your intended assignments for that week into that week’s folder. Include handouts, notes, worksheets, quizzes, tests, etc. Your textbook, district scope and sequence, department head, etc. might guide you on which assignments to select and the scheduling of the assignments over the school year. Get a few weeks ahead if you can. You can always re-file assignments into a previous or subsequent week later on.

6. When it comes time to write your lesson plans, take out the week’s folder and write your plans based on the documents there. Hopefully this will make it easier. Backwards design the student learning activities from the quizzes and tests you’ve placed there.

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