Your principal tells you that you need a yearlong plan or a year-at-a-glance (YAG)…great.
Now what is that and how do you create it?
Here’s the easiest way to do that. Just read on.
A yearlong plan is an overview of what you’ll be teaching all year.
It will save you time and energy — and help you remain accountable for what you’re expected to teach this year. It does that by being based on your standards.
Depending on how your school works, your plan will be divided into quarters or grading periods.
I’ll show you how to do both here.
A yearlong plan will help make sure you will teach what you need to teach!
Plus, most likely, you’ll be observed during the school year, and your lesson plans may be reviewed. A yearlong plan will assure that you are doing what the school has hired you to do.
A yearlong plan is different from unit planning and lesson planning. It’s also different from your scope and sequence.
Your yearlong plan will give you an overview of the year, which you can then use it to create your units.
Have I convinced you that you need one?!
Let’s get started!
If you school or district provides you with a plan, begin there. I find it helpful to create a simple one-page chart where I see the whole year on one page.
This is also what I provide parents on back-to-school night, so they can see what is happening. I always include the disclaimer: “This plan is subject to change depending on the needs of the students.” This will make sure you don’t feel trapped by what’s written in your plan.
Include all of the writing modes that you need to teach for the entire year on this one-page calendar.
Why this is so helpful:
You’ll be able to put this one-page plan in your planner or on your desktop and see where you want to go as the year progresses.
It’s easy to get “lost in the weeds” when you’re teaching. By having a guide for what comes next and when, you’ll feel confident that you know what’s coming and you’ll be working to get your students ready for the next writing genre.
You can stop here if…
If you’re required to provide a quarterly yearlong plan, you’re finished! You’ve plotted out what you’ll be teaching each quarter.
But wait…there’s more!
If you want to expand your plan to make unit planning easier, keep going.
Read on to learn how.
Now comes the fun part. You know you need to teach expository writing in the first six weeks. Okay. Cool. How do you want to teach that?
Be sure to list them in your plan – accountability for your standards is key! You’ll notice that many standards have multiple pieces.
For example:
Your standard may state: “Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.”
There are a lot of things going on in that one standard! You could break it up into individual lessons:
Of course, you notice that the standard uses “or,” so you have flexibility of what you will teach.
Once you’ve broken the standards down, you can start filling them into your chart.
Caution: Try not to cram too much into each chunk. Your students may need more time to develop skills in a particular area.
You may want to build in a focus on different themes like friendship, kindness, or gratitude each grading session. Having a theme as you plan can help you narrow what you want to teach and how.
One great tool that you’re probably already using is Pinterest.
Create a board (you can always make it secret!) for your big writing projects. (You can check out the items I’ve collected on my board here.)
Use the board to collect ideas — assignments, mentor texts, anchor charts, writing prompts. Simply gathering ideas can help you determine what you want your students’ writing lessons to look like.
One thing that will exhaust you faster than anything is trying to reinvent the wheel for every writing activity.
If you have a textbook, be sure to look at the teacher support materials. You may find graphic organizers, prompts, mentor texts, student samples, and checklists that you can adapt or use. This can be a big time saver!
Remember that in addition to planning, you’ll be assessing. Keep that in mind as you plan.
I love using Trello to keep all my ideas in one place. This video below will help you do just that.
Here’s a quick way to organize your materials by using free Trello boards:
So let’s say you’ve decided you want your your students to write a problem/solution essay for their expository prompt.
Now what?
Use a planning chart (you can find one here) to break down what you want to teach each week.
By using a calendar to plot out the pace of your writing assignments, you’ll be able to know exactly where your students are and where they should be.
As your plan comes together, you’ll see how you’ll use it to plan units and your daily lesson plans.
The first week of working on a problem/solution essay might involve:
You can see that just this one week will be full of preparing students for the writing process!
Don’t forget to add in ideas for end of the year activities.
It is easy to fall behind on your plan (remember that college professor who was behind on the syllabus after the first day of class?!). That’s why building in extra days is helpful, but sometimes that might not be enough.
You will have students who charge ahead and those who lag behind. That’s what is so great about a workshop-style class. You can conference with students individually or in small groups to keep them (or get them) on track.
Be careful not to slow the entire class down while you’re waiting for a student or two to catch up. Your class with lose energy and enthusiasm for the topic if they are working on the same writing project week after week. Pulling students into groups will help tremendously.
It’s never a problem if students work more quickly because there is always another paper that can be written! What could possibly be wrong with writing more?!
In order to make your own yearlong plan a tool that will serve you well, you need to take the time to reflect and record notes on your plan. What worked? And what didn’t? What did the students respond well to? Where did they need more time? What resources were great and what were not so great?
Sure, you think you’ll remember all of that for next year…but chances are you won’t remember the details that made the lessons work or … not.
A yearlong plan can be an amazing teaching tool that will lighten your load by helping you organize your year — what do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Want a copy of my editable yearlong plan forms? You can find one here.
And if you need a bit more help, check out these resources in my shop:?
