Language Arts Lesson Plans: Plan Your Units for the Year

This is the sixth part of a mini-series on back-to-school tips with a focus on language arts lesson plans and planning your units for the year.

So planning your language arts units for the entire year…I know, I know, it sounds absolutely crazy and overwhelming. But I promise, if you carve out some time now, and it’s not as much time as you might think. “Future you” is not only going to thank you, but “future you” will be madly, madly in love with “present you”.

If you’ve been reading my posts, you know that I really try to take a huge, monumental topic and outline it into simple steps. And doing this for language arts lesson plans is my specialty! I really wish I had a magic wand and that I could do this for you. Although I don’t have a magic wand, I will show you exactly what I do.

Basic Steps for Language Arts Lesson Plans

There are the basic steps to take with your language arts lesson plans when looking at the year. I’ll list them now, and get into detail with an example of how I do this.

List your reading units and writing units
Decide how units are administered
List any other areas that you teach consistently and separately from reading and writing units and decide how you incorporate them
Assign a rough timeline for each unit
Plug it into a calendar
Keep a living document of what the lessons and assessments will be

Step 1 for Language Arts Lesson Plans: List Your Reading and Writing Units

The first step is to list your reading and writing units. I teach using reading and writing workshop, but I’ve sort of cultivated my own way of doing it to make it more skills-based and way more streamlined, skills-based, and purposeful.

One thing I found helpful was to do reading first and then a writing unit. That means in my class, we are either in a reading unit or a writing unit. I alternate and each unit takes about a month, so I do ten units in all.

Launch

I like my writing to follow the reading and contain the same skills. For example, I start with a reading unit. As I talked about in my last blog, I start with a quick launch unit on reading. This is a whole class novella. This sets kids up to learn what the workshop model looks like in my class, what to expect, and the important skills that they will need for the whole year. For example, literary terms and plotline will be needed in both reading and writing units.

First “Official” Unit

Then I go right into my first official reading unit, which is realistic fiction. Kids are in book clubs. They pick their books on a curated list of books that are written in first person with a strong main character and a clear plot line. The writing unit comes next, and they write a personal narrative. They use the skills that were taught in the reading unit to help them. In that first reading unit, we go heavy on mini lessons that include plotline, dialogue, internal monologue, etc. This sets them up for success in the writing unit that follows.

My Units

In case it’s helpful, I’ll list my reading/writing units for the year. Each unit lasts about a month:

Whole class novel/personal narrative
Realistic fiction/literary essay on character traits
Informational text/feature article
Historical fiction/literary essay on theme
Reading poetry/writing poetry

You might have your curriculum dictated to you, and in that case there is not a lot to think about, but you might have some control over when you do certain units and how you manage your year. So just list out all of your reading and writing units first, and you are good to go.

Help if You Need It with Language Arts Lesson Plans

By the way, this is something that I do more methodically in my course on Writing Workshop. It’s available on Teachable. I know you will find it very useful it if you are new to writing workshop. The first module offered for free, complete with the video to instruct you and a workbook to fill out to guide you. It’s free and very, very helpful, so I’ll link that first module in the show notes as well.

Check out this full course and grab the first module for free!

Next Step: Decide How Units are Administered

Next, you will need to decide how the units are administered. This means that you have to decide if you are teaching reading/writing/anything extra together or separately.

To make this clear, let me explain what I do. As I said, I teach 10 units. I alternate between reading and writing. That means I start with reading, and then I do a coordinating writing unit. Again, I try to make it so that they match up. You might not be able to do this. I know some districts have very extended blocks and they do reading and writing together, sometimes even in the same time period. When we used to have a modular schedule, I taught language arts for 84 minutes. Not going to lie, it was rough. I did reading and writing in the same day. It was very hectic and way too much for my 6th graders, especially my ICR class.

Then, I changed it and did it every other day. Talk about confusion…kids had no idea what to bring, even though I wrote it on a board outside my door because it was like white noise to them. But now, there are about 55 minutes and I settled on doing reading one month, then writing.

I have a lot of autonomy and since I was the person writing the curriculum and quite frankly they trusted me and just wanted it done, that’s what we do now. I really like this method and would highly recommend it to you if you are allowed to make decisions like this.

Step 3: Other Areas You Teach Separately

Now, you’ll have to figure out how you will handle any other units that you might teach separately. This might include areas such as grammar and vocabulary. I know true reading and writing workshop incorporates this, but quite frankly I just don’t think it is enough.

Grammar

The way that I do this is Monday I introduce a grammar concept. It is a very short mini lesson; you can barely call it a mini lesson as I just go over it. Then our district uses IXL, so I assign practice to go along with the concept. That becomes a homework assignment that is due by the following Monday. It is usually not homework because many kids do it if they finish something. We also have a flex period where they can work on it.

I also sometimes have them choose something from my grammar choice board that is also due the following Monday. I really love my grammar choice board because you can use it for a bunch of skills that can be repeated throughout the year.

Check out this grammar choice board if you need some fresh ideas.

Vocabulary

Somehow I inherited doing vocabulary on Fridays. I’m honestly not crazy about it, but it is a nice break in the action, especially on a Friday.

It was felt that it wasn’t enough to incorporate it into units, and I do agree with that. I’m just not always crazy about giving up a whole day to do this. But in any event, I have created lists over the years and do a lot with Greek and Latin roots/suffixes/prefixes.

Then I use my vocabulary choice board which again, is something you can use all year with any vocab list. I go over the words via a google slides presentation, then I have them select a vocab choice.

This choice board can be used with any list of vocabulary words.

Assign a Rough Timeline

The next thing you do is going to be very simple, because if you followed what I said above, you’ve already considered this and that is to assign a rough timeline for each. For me, each unit is roughly a month, with grammar as a quick lesson on Monday and vocab on Fridays.

Then I assign each month a unit, and then I refine it a little because I like to finish units before breaks when possible. By breaks I mean any breaks like Thanksgiving, winter, long weekends, etc. This doesn’t always work out but it is a good goal because it’s nice to finish out before kids leave and then you start fresh when they return.

Plug Units into a Calendar for Your Language Arts Lesson Plans

This part takes a bit longer. This is something that takes me about an hour. I would say get this part done right now, because honestly this is where the money is so to speak.

What you want to do is absolutely first grab my freebie which is a planning calendar with all of this years current dates. This part takes that longest so you really want to grab it. Then, fill in any dates that you have off, or special days that you know about like field days, class trips, etc. Next, you’ll fill in the column with your unit.

Click here for your freebie: Calendar Freebie

Then the hardest part, which is to fill in the activity for each day. You are probably thinking that I am CRAZY to think you can fill in an activity for each day but hear me out. This is a google doc, so it is editable. You also don’t have to do this in any fancy way. I might write something like: “Social Issues Lesson 1 Theme”. This way, I have a rough idea and most importantly, it can change as needed.

Any time my district announces something, like testing, I put it in the calendar. I share the calendar with my 6th grade counterpart so that we are on the same page. I’m telling you, I started doing a yearly calendar and it was life changing. My counterpart was so appreciative and said it reduced her stress greatly.

I even put links to the lessons because I’ve been doing this for a while. This might be a better goal for next year or adding as you go along this year. I recommend making it a little fun. Wait for a rainy day, make your favorite cup of tea (or wine, even better!), light a candle, and perhaps get someone to watch your kids. You will thank yourself after it’s done.

Trust me on this one. At the very least, do this for at least the first month and then do it for each month prior. But I really recommend doing it for the year. It takes away all the stress because at least you have a plan.

Keep a Living Document on Lessons and Assessments

This goes along with what I spoke about above. Whether you are using my freebie or not, keep a document of what you are doing each month.

You will then have to add in your assessments. Add this right in on the calendar under the activity. Again, it would be good to put in links as you go along. Putting in all the links up front would be too mind blowing, so do it as you go along.

And like I said, you want this to be a living, breathing document. Share it with your counterpart and then you can both make changes as needed. The second year you do this, it’s so much easier because you already have your basic ideas and you can just change as needed.

Language Arts Lesson Plans: That’s a Wrap!

I hope these suggestions for planning your language arts units were helpful. Giving some time to plan out your first unit can really set you and your kids up for success for the entire year.