How to Write a Lesson Plan

What is a Lesson Plan?

I'm sure doing your education journey you have heard the term lesson plan many times. In essence a lesson plan is a blueprint for how a teacher will introduce content to students based on the state education standards. Lesson plans are very detailed and will include things like the state standard being taught, the grade level being taught, materials needed for the lesson, how long the lesson will be, technology used in, etc. A good lesson plan can be picked up by a complete stranger and taught to a class without any need of help because of the detail in it. 

How do you Write a Lesson Plan?

Now, that you know what a lesson plan is it is time to learn how to write one. 

Material needed: State learning standard, computer, Google account, and Lesson idea   

As I go through the Instructions for the lesson plan,  please follow along with the template that I have attached below. The template I have attached is from one of my education professors who had my class create a lesson plan recently. (Make sure to download a copy of the lesson plan template located at the bottom of this page). 

*I have an example of my own lesson plan at the bottom of the page*

Step 1: Subject, Teacher, Grade Level, Time Frame

 Subject- The Subject of your lesson plan is the topic you will be teaching about like Order of Operations, Author's Purpose, Inferencing, etc

Teacher-In the Teacher section you put Mr., Mrs. Mx, and your last name 

Grade Level-In the Grade level Section you will put the Grade level you will be teaching 

Time Frame- In the Time Frame section you will include, in minutes, for how long your lesson will take. A lesson should be 45 minutes!

Step 2:Lesson Plan Description 

The Lesson plan description is a brief summary of how your lesson will flow in the classroom. In the description you want to include all parts of the lesson plan but also keep it brief, so that a reader can get a snapshot of what your lesson will look like. 

Step 3:Content Area Standards Alignment

In the Content Area Standards Alignment section, this is where you will cite your state standard for your lesson. This section is the most important part because it shows people how your lesson ties back to what the students are learning. 

I will give an example for how to cite a Texas Essential Knowledge and Skill on your Lesson plan 

Example: 

4.6H

(6) Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts. The student is expected to:

(H) synthesize information to create new understanding;

In the example, I cited the TEKS using this format: Grade.Number.Letter

The grade I put in was 4th grade. The section is 6, and the letter I used from that section is H. After you cite the TEKS, just copy and paste it into your lesson plan. 

Step 4:Objectives

The objective is what your students are expected to accomplish during the lesson. The objective is putting the TEKS into a goal for your students that is easy to understand. The objectives should have verbs to emphasize that it will be actions that your students will complete. The objective will always start off with, "The student will be able to..". The first part of the objective can be abbreviated as TSWBAT. 

Here is an example objective based off the TEKS from above: TSWBAT create information about summer camp before and after reading a passage using semantic mapping.

*Notice that create is the verb I used for this objective*

Step 5:Resources/Materials/Tools

The resources/materials/tools section is all about what will be need to make your lesson successful . The categories for what you may need will fall under non-technology, technology, and vocabulary. The vocabulary that should be used is academic vocabulary the students need to know to understand the lesson or topic being taught. 

Example: If my lesson is about parts of a book then the vocabulary my students should know spine, title, pages, and author. 

Step 6:Lesson Stages, Lesson Sequence, Lesson Management

The lesson stages, lesson sequence, and lesson management will be the most important part of your lesson plan because it will be where you write down how your lesson will flow. 

The Lesson Stages are:

1. Focus/Anticipatory Set- The warm up or beginning activity to get the students engaged with the lesson 

2. Content-The place where you go into the details of the topic through notes, discussion, or a powerpoint 

3. Guided Practice-The practice be done with the teacher and students  

4. Independent Practice- The students do an activity by themselves or with each other, but no teacher assistance is given. 

*The Guided Practice and Indepedent Practice are where teachers are allowed to get the most creative to help engage the student*

5. Closure- The way to close out the end of the lesson through an exit ticket or an open discussion about what was learned   

Step 7:Assessment

In the assessment section, you will detail how you will test if your students know the information given to them. The assessment could be a mini quiz or having them answering questions during a video or having them do a research project. Creativty can also play a big role for how you choose to asses. 

Step 8:Potential Challenges 

This part of the lesson plan is where you play risk-manager. As a teacher, we always need to have a backup plan for if something goes wrong. This section is the place to have  a plan B if technology isn't working, the printer machine isn't working, or you forget a material at home. The whole section is just about planning for the worst case scenario 

Step 9:Differentiatied Learning 

In this section you will detail how you wil help different learners like struggulers,high-achievers, and non-native english speakers.