I worked for high-accountability principals, each of whom had a preferred high school lesson plan template required and ready for us. Some wanted paper copies on their desks by Monday morning, and some just wanted them available if they walked in. I had a couple of laid-back administrators who had the “I trust you until you give me a reason not to” philosophy, and they only wanted lesson plans for formal observations.
A consultant once told us in a workshop once that a teacher should spend three hours planning for every one hour of instruction. BAHAHAHAHAHA. So for the six hours I teach on any given day, I should be spending 18 hours planning? That leaves how much time for sleep? That would be zero hours. Maybe that 18 hours should happen on weekends and during breaks. Nope. If you’ve read my post 10 Tips for New High School Teachers, you know how I feel about taking work home.
Honestly, I taught better when my principal expected written lesson plans. The habit forced me to align my instruction with state standards and best practices, and I felt more confident and prepared going in. (That’s one of the things that sets my published resources apart; they include detailed lesson plans that a teacher can use immediately with little prep.)
Whether you’re required to write one or not, I promise that you’ll feel more prepared to keep students engaged.
The High School Lesson Plan Template
There really should be an S after Template up there. I don’t believe that EVERY teacher should be following the same format for every lesson.
Here’s why: Some lessons are skill-based, and some are content-based. For example, when I teach my students how to write commentary, we’re working on a skill, and I have to model the skill, practice it with the class, let students practice in pairs or small teams, and then let them give it a whirl solo. That’s gradual release, and it’s quite different from content.
A content lesson might be a social studies lesson on the causes of World War I or an explanation of lab safety. It can even be in a skill-based class like ELA or math. For example, although I need to teach tone analysis in my AP Language classes, I do have to frontload some tone vocabulary. A frontloading lesson might be content in preparation for a skill.
Then there’s science. Most science teachers have become familiar with the 5E format, and I kinda like it for other content areas. The elements are engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. I could see an art teacher using it or an auto mechanic teacher using it. The idea that kids make their own meaning before we box it up is appealing.
What EVERY High School Lesson Plan Template Should Include
Here are the non-negotiables:
Standards/Objectives
A teacher’s contract most likely dictates that she teaches the skills and knowledge outlined in a specific curriculum. That’s the job. So if that’s the job, then those standards should be explicitly stated in the lesson plan. What that looks like is up to the admin, but it should be either the number/letter combo or the language.
For example, CCSS.Math.Content.HSG.SRT.B.4 Prove theorems about triangles is a Common Core trigonometry standard. Here’s what all that gobbeldy gook means: Common Core State Standards. Mathematics. Content. High School Geometry. Similarity, Right Triangles, & Trigonometry. B= Prove theorems involving similarity. 4 is the specific, actual THING being taught: Prove theorems about triangles. A math teacher might put HSG.SRT.B.4, but a shorthand SRT.B.4 would work, and “Prove theorems about triangles” would also do the job.
Activator
Call it a hook, warmup, or bellringer, it has one very specific purpose: BRING A STUDENT’S EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT A SPECIFIC TOPIC FROM THE BACK OF A STUDENT’S BRAIN TO THE FRONT SO SHE CAN HOOK NEW KNOWLEDGE ON TO IT. For example, as an English teacher, before I facilitate a lesson on apostrophes, I’m going to show students an infamous tweet battle between two pop culture figures. They will have seen it before and can relate to the content before I have them identify the punctuation errors in the tweets. The day I introduce The Catcher in the Rye, my students will journal about a time they felt like an outsider.
Sometimes, the activator can be very content specific. For example, on Monday, an algebra teacher might present a lesson on one small skill within a complex process. On Tuesday, the warmup is brief practice of Monday’s skill before Tuesday’s related skill is introduced.
Teacher Input
This piece might be a lecture, a demonstration of a skill, a short YouTube video showing how something is done, a TED Talk, or a complex set of instructions. In my line of work, it’s often modeling. Because English is a skill-based subject, I use the Modeled-Shared-Guided-Independent approach. After the activator, I begin most lessons with a demonstration of the skill students are going to learn that day. For example, if we are going to work on sentence combining, I will first do a think aloud with two sentences on the white board. You could make an argument that the Shared piece comes in here; we work on that same skill together as a whole group.
Student Active Participation
Here’s where lesson plan templates have one piece that varies. Simply, this section is just what students are doing. This is where Bloom’s taxonomy comes in. Rigor is work in the higher levels of Bloom’s. (You can read a blog post about it here.) In my line of work, this is where the Guided-Independent pieces come in to play. Students work in pairs or small groups to practice the skill we’re working on (while I monitor closely), and then when I think they’re ready, students practice on their own. At this point, any assessment would be formative and low stakes.
This is also where most differentiation takes place. I might pair my students by their strength as writers (weak-average and average-strong), I might have ESL students reading an article with a different Lexile level than that of the rest of the class, etc.
If you’d like a list of 30 differentiation strategies, grab that here.
Summary/Closure
Ah, the often-overlooked-because-the-bell-just-rang piece. You know how you have to bring that knowledge to the front of a student’s brain during the activator? Closure is the bookend to the activator. That warmup brought the knowledge forward, you hooked on to that knowledge or experience with new information or a new skill, and the closure welds it all together so that it sticks.
For example, after a lesson on one element of the Cold War, a social studies teacher might have students process (or “download”) the material covered. That could look a number of different ways, but one way is a 3-2-1 ticket out the door on a half slip of paper. Students tell the teacher three things they learned, two things they want to know more about, and one point of confusion.
Here are the semi-negotiables:
Essential Question/”I can” Statement
Students need to know what’s coming and what the end goal is, but the way that information is communicated to students is likely a principal preference. (I gotta tell you this as the mother of a teenager who has to know what’s coming, having an agenda and a goal on the board will prevent you from having to answer 750 questions before the tardy bell has rung.)
Assessment
All lessons include some informal assessment; for example, while I’m modeling, I’m watching faces to see who looks confused. That’s assessment. However, not all lesson plans include a whole-group assignment that tests students’ knowledge and skills.
Extension
Early finishers might need an enrichment task, gifted students may want to go a bit deeper on a topic, or a 90-minute block might need a brief filler, but not all lessons need to take a deep dive into a topic.
All parts of the lesson
Because some lessons require a lot of frontloading, an entire period might be teacher input. There may be lessons that require no teacher input. Not every single class will hit all the pieces of a lesson.
To make life a bit easier for you, I designed a set of pretty snazzy lesson plan templates for high school teachers. Watch this ten-minute video to see the lesson plate template I designed for you.
You can find the template here.
