How to Write a Lesson Plan

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Welcome to part three in our four-part Back to Basics series on unit planning. In week 1 we completed the first step of the process, which was to write a set of measurable objectives for a sample unit on food safety. In week 2 we designed a unit assessment plan that included diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. Today we’ll build the individual daily lesson plans. And in part four, I’ll share my process for differentiating instruction.

While my process is not the only way to plan a unit, it’s one that I think can help anyone who struggles with instructional planning. The underlying structure is built on the backward design approach popularized by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in their book Understanding by Design: Start by writing measurable objectives for the unit, then design the assessment that will measure those objectives. Only after that final assessment is in place do you then plan the lessons that will lead students to success on the final assessment.

I’m putting out this series as an introduction to my new online course, Mastering the Lesson Plan. These four posts and companion podcast episodes will give you the big picture, but the course takes a much deeper dive into each step of the process and gives you practical tools you can use to plan stronger instruction. I’ll share more details about it at the end of this post.

Here’s where we left off: My example unit is called “Safe Food Handling” and the essential question is “How do your choices in the kitchen affect the safety of the food you prepare?” Here are my objectives:

By the end of this unit, students will be able to…

1. Explain how unsafe food-handling practices can lead to foodborne illness.
2. Describe the basic principles of safe food handling.
3. Apply safe food-handling practices while preparing, cooking, and storing food.
4. Evaluate food-handling situations, identify unsafe practices, and recommend safer alternatives.

My summative assessment has two parts. 

• Part 1 asks students to answer this question: “What are the four basic principles of safe food handling? Name each one and briefly describe what it means.”
• Part 2 asks them to read four short scenarios describing people preparing, cooking, or storing food. For each one, students will identify what was done safely and unsafely, explain why unsafe practices could lead to foodborne illness, and describe what should have been done instead.

With this in place, I created a diagnostic assessment to give to students right before the unit starts. Part 1 of that will be the same. Part 2 will have students analyze just one scenario that’s similar to the scenarios on the summative assessment. This should give me a quick snapshot of the knowledge students already have before the unit starts.

Finally, I planned a few formative assessments to do during the unit to check on student progress: one entry slip to check their understanding at the beginning of day 2, a game to review the content, also on day 2 (this is a short unit), and observation of students during a group work activity on day 3.

Now it’s time to plan the daily lessons, the activities we’ll do in class on the four days of the unit.

Here’s the good news: Because I already have the assessments built, the lesson plans partially write themselves, because each of these assessments is a stepping stone we have to get to during the unit; all I have to do now is figure out how to get students to each one.

Writing Lesson Plans, Step-by-Step 

Step 1: Roughly map out the days based on the assessment plan.

With a general idea of how many days I think the unit should take, but staying flexible in case the fleshed out version ends up needing more or less time, I’ll write a rough plan for what I want to do on each day. We’re not putting down the specifics of the daily lesson plans — just getting a general idea of the main thing that has to happen on each day.

So here’s my rough sketch:

One thing you might be wondering is why I’m choosing to give an entry slip on day 2 instead of an exit slip on day 1. It’s because I want to build in a little time for students to forget what they learned. If I did the exit slip on day 1, students would still have a lot of the material fresh in short-term memory, but what I’ve learned from cognitive science is that spaced practice — letting some time pass before asking students to recall information — requires students to work a little harder and creates the desirable difficulty that leads to better learning.

I’m using the entry slip not just as a formative assessment: While it does let me check student understanding, it also gives students some retrieval practice by asking them to recall something they learned from memory. Just the act of trying to remember the four principles from the day before is actually going to help them learn them better for the summative assessment.

Step 2: Plan the core learning activities for each day.

Now that I have my rough plan, it’s time to start filling it in. When I do this, I don’t typically fill in my lesson plans from start to finish. I kind of work from the middle out.

Before I show you how I do that, let’s look at the basic pieces that make up a lesson. Most lesson plans contain the following components:

• An opening, where you grab students’ attention and give them a preview of what’s to come 
• A content acquisition component, where you do something to get the material into students’ brains
• Application, where you give students something to do with what they just learned, some kind of interaction with it so they can learn it better
• Some kind of assessment, where you measure how well students learned
• A closing, where you have students review and reflect on the learning

These components won’t necessarily show up in the same proportions every day. One lesson might be heavy on content acquisition, while another might devote most of its time to application or assessment. Thinking in terms of these components simply gives me a framework for making sure each lesson has what it needs.

When I start fleshing out each day, I don’t necessarily plan these components in the order they appear above. Most of my assessments are already in place from the assessment planning stage, and I usually save the openings and closings for last. So at this point, I focus first on content acquisition and application — I consider these to be the “core” learning activities of each day — like the meat of the lesson. My rough plan has already given me a general idea of which of these I’ll need on a given day; now I need to choose the specific strategies I’ll use to make them happen.

Day 1: 

My main focus on this day needs to be content acquisition, getting the four principles of food safety into students’ heads. Since this is a short unit, I need to make the most of this day. I have a lot of options for how I can do that. 

• I can choose direct acquisition, which would be the most efficient. This would be either a lecture, a video, or a reading where the information is just presented plainly.
• The other options are experiential acquisition, where students experience something like a field trip, a service learning experience, or a structured observation of something, or discovery acquisition, where I have students work with the content on their own until they start to discover underlying principles themselves — this is where strategies like concept attainment, concept formation, and inquiry-based learning belong.

Because the unit is short, and because we’ll be doing a lot more hands-on learning later in the course, I’m going to choose some form of direct acquisition, because it’s the fastest way. Right now I’m leaning toward giving them a reading.

Along with the way I deliver instruction, I need to think about two more elements of the content acquisition component:

• instructional supports: handouts, slides, anchor charts, and other resources that help students understand the content better and give them something to reference later 
• content processing strategies: something students can do while the content is being delivered, so they are actively processing it. This includes things like note-taking, graphic organizers, KWL charts, and discussions.  

(By the way, in my online course, Mastering the Lesson Plan, I explain more than 25 different strategies that can be used in the content acquisition phase of a lesson — acquisition strategies, instructional supports, and content processing strategies, and each one has a downloadable PDF you can use as a reference.)

For this first day, I was thinking I’d like to have students do a reading — I’ve been wanting them to do more reading of informational texts, and this is a perfect opportunity to do that. But instead of just giving them the information in one reading, I’m noticing that the food safety principles are already divided into four chunks: clean, separate, cook, and chill, and it’s all very straightforward information. This naturally makes me think of the jigsaw strategy, where students are responsible for teaching each other chunks of content. This topic is perfect for a jigsaw. So I’ll need to create a reading with four clearly delineated sections — maybe even four separate pages — and then some kind of graphic organizer students can use to take notes as they’re learning the material. 

If I’m teaching a 50-minute class period, I’ll need at least 30 minutes just for that jigsaw — 10 minutes for groups to read and plan their teaching, then about 5 minutes for each expert group to teach their jigsaw group.

That leaves me 20 minutes in the period. We won’t be doing any application on day 1; I’ll leave that for day 2. I can do a 5-minute opening, plus 5 minutes to model the jigsaw process, and then use some of my remaining time to do some kind of check to make sure all the groups got what they needed. I’m thinking I’ll project a few questions on the board to check their understanding, have them answer in their heads, then display the answer on the screen — it’ll be a fast way for students to self-assess. Meanwhile, I’ll be circulating the whole time during the jigsaw activity, making sure all the groups are teaching accurate information, so that will also be a kind of light assessment.

Again, I’ll plan the specifics of my opening and closing later. We have our core plan for day 1. Let’s move on to day 2. 

Day 2

I have an entry slip planned for the very start of this class — I’ll simply ask students to list the four principles and write a definition for each in their own words. I’ll collect this and review the responses later: Ideally, I would read them as quickly as possible, so I can determine which students understand and can recall the principles, and who is still not quite getting them. I could plan to read them after class, but if I can find a pocket of time during class that would be even better, because then I could give extra attention to the students whose responses show that they need more support with the principles. Even if I don’t get a chance to review their responses until later, students will still get immediate feedback, because we’ll go over the answers together as soon as they turn in the entry slip. 

After that’s done, what I need to do on day 2 is some kind of application. The students have been introduced to the content, and we’ll do scenario practice on day 3, so I have this day open to choose another activity to deepen their understanding.

When I think about how I want them to use what they learn in this unit, my mind goes to hands-on cooking with real food. But since we don’t have time for that, and I want students to practice with more than one cooking situation, I think I’ll do a simulation.

I’m picturing one student following a recipe while the others coach them through preparing it safely. Instead of real supplies and food, they’ll use fake ones — maybe made of paper — so the activity is quick to set up. We can still “cook” the meal and follow the same food safety guidelines. I’m thinking of four recipes, each with a few tricky spots — handling raw chicken, storing leftovers, and so on — so students get plenty of practice applying the rules. This will replicate what they would do with real food without the time, mess, and expense. For every recipe, I’ll provide an “answer key” that groups can look at only after finishing, so they can check whether they did everything correctly.

I’ll demonstrate the first one myself. The class will have a copy of the recipe, and I’ll stand at the front with my paper supplies. Instead of having the whole class shout out instructions, I’ll call on one student at a time and intentionally mess up a few times to see if they can correct me. Then I’ll put students into small groups with three more recipes to “cook” in the same way. This will allow everyone to participate more actively.

I had originally planned to do a game at the end of this class period, but since we’re already doing some retrieval at the beginning of day 2 and I want to leave more room for the simulations, I’m going to move the game to day 3. That’s a change from the assessment plan I made earlier, which is fine — plans like these should stay flexible as the individual lessons take shape. 

Day 3

I’ve decided to end this class period with a review game of all the material we’ve covered so far, so I’ll set aside the last 20 minutes of class for that. 

For the other main activity, I want to give students practice with the same kind of scenarios they’ll be given in the summative assessment on day 4. Using the same format as the questions in the summative assessment, I’ll create four or five different scenarios. We’ll do the first one together as a class: I’ll have them read it, do a think-pair-share to discuss the answers, then I’ll call on volunteers to share their responses. If any misconceptions surface during this part, I’ll correct them.

Next, I was going to have students just work at their desks in small groups on the remaining scenarios, but on second thought, to keep it more active, I think I want to do this as a gallery walk: I’ll post about six different scenarios around the room and give students an answer sheet they fill out in pairs or triads. I’ll give them a few minutes at each station to read the scenario and write down their answers, then we’ll reconvene and go over the answers together. I’ll plan for about 25 minutes for this activity. If it ends up taking too long, I just won’t have students visit every station; they’ll hear all of them when we review them as a class anyway.

With the remaining 15 minutes, we’ll play a game of Kahoot with review questions from the material we learned on day 1. This extra bit of retrieval practice should get them ready for the summative assessment on the last day. 

Day 4

Now we’re ready for the summative assessment. I’m going to give it at the beginning of class, and I’m expecting students to take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to finish. Since they’ll be finishing at different times, I need to plan something they can do independently when they’re done. Ideally, it should be able to fill up to 30 minutes but still be worthwhile if a student only has 10 minutes to work on it.

Because the summative assessment is the last part of this short unit, I could use the remaining time to get students started on the next unit. But I think I’ll do something different: Give them a preview of their end-of-course assessment.

For that assessment, students will plan, cook, and serve a three-course meal consisting of an appetizer, entrée, and dessert. They won’t need to make any decisions about their meal yet, but I can get them started by having them browse recipes and collect some possibilities.

Rather than opening up their search to the whole internet, I’ll give students a short list of reputable recipe websites or specific collections within those sites that offer plenty of beginner-friendly recipes. This will give them a manageable search space while still letting them practice something they’ll need to be able to do independently after the course: find recipes they might actually want to make.

I’ll also give them a simple graphic organizer with three sections — appetizers, entrées, and desserts. As they browse, they’ll record any recipes they might consider for their final meal, along with a few basic details like the recipe name, total preparation time, difficulty level, and a quick note about why it interests them. I’ll make it clear that they are not choosing their final menu today; they’re just collecting possibilities.

I might ask everyone to find at least one possibility for each course, then encourage them to keep browsing and adding more for as long as they have time. That makes this activity a good fit for the uneven finish times: A student who has 30 minutes can explore quite a few recipes, while someone who only has 10 minutes can still get started without falling behind. And because they’ll return to these possibilities later in the course, the activity isn’t just something to keep early finishers busy — it’s giving them a head start on a project they’ll eventually complete.

Step 3: Add the opening, closing, and timings.

Now that I have the core of each lesson figured out, I can go back and fill in the openings and closings. I usually save these for this point because once I know what the main learning activities are, it’s easier to figure out how I want to lead students into them and how I want to wrap them up. I’m only going to walk through the openings and closings for days 1 and 2 here. I’ll use those two days to show how I make these decisions, rather than going through every lesson in the unit. 

When I write openings, I try to include two things: a hook to get students’ attention, followed by a preview of the lesson so they know what they’ll be learning and doing.

For the opening of day 1, I want to get students thinking about why food safety matters before we start learning the four principles. So I’ll use a short video about a food poisoning episode caused by improperly stored rice as the hook. Afterward, students will do a quick turn-and-talk about why the people got sick and what mistake the restaurant made. Then I’ll preview the unit by explaining that as we start learning how to cook for ourselves, we need to start by learning how to do it safely. I’ll also show students the four unit objectives so they know what they’ll be able to do by the end.

For closings, I try to include some kind of reflection or review of the learning, along with a preview of what students will be learning or doing the next day.

For the closing on day 1, I don’t think I need much. We’ll have just finished the whole-class quiz, which already gives students a review of what they learned, so I’ll simply point that out and preview what’s coming next: Today we learned the basics of food safety; tomorrow we’ll practice using those principles in a cooking simulation.

On day 2, the entry slip and the teacher demonstration are already going to serve as most of my opening. After we go over the entry-slip answers, I’ll demonstrate the first cooking simulation with the whole class, then tell students that now it’s their turn: They’re going to take what they learned yesterday and apply it to three more recipes.

For the closing, I want students to reflect on where they are with the content after all that practice. I’ll have them do a turn-and-talk about which of the four food safety principles they understand best, which one they understand least, and what questions they still have. If time permits, we can address some of those questions right then; otherwise, I’ll make note of them for follow-up. Then I’ll give them a quick preview of day 3, when we’ll look at descriptions of people cooking and determine whether they’re following safe practices.

I should also point out that not every opening needs to be this involved. On day 4, for example, students are taking the summative assessment, so I’m not going to come up with some kind of creative hook. I’ll just get them started on the assessment, then make sure they know what to do when they finish. That’s enough of an opening for that day. The point is to start the class in a way that makes sense for what students are about to do, and sometimes that can be very simple.

At this point I’ll also go back through each lesson and put realistic times on everything, making adjustments as needed so the whole thing fits into the class period. And with that, the instructional part of my lesson plans is basically done.

Step 4: Finalize the logistics.

The last step is to fill in the remaining details at the top of each lesson plan: the lesson title, objectives, materials, and anything I need to prepare ahead of time.

I already had the daily objectives in mind as I planned and wrote the lessons. Now I’m formalizing them in the lesson plan and making sure they connect to the larger unit objectives. I’ll narrow them down to what students will actually be learning or doing each day. On day 1, students are learning all of the content for the unit, so my objectives are that students will be able to name and explain the four principles of food safety and the key practices associated with each, and explain how unsafe food-handling practices can lead to foodborne illness.

On day 2, we’re moving into application, so the objective is that students will be able to apply safe food-handling practices while preparing, cooking, and storing food.

Next I’ll make a materials list for each day. For day 1, I’ll need the four readings for the jigsaw, the graphic organizer students will use to take notes, a slideshow with the jigsaw instructions, and another slideshow with the questions for the whole-class quiz. I’ll also make a note to assign students to their jigsaw and expert groups ahead of time.

Day 2 requires more preparation because of the cooking simulations. I’ll need three printed recipes and sets of paper food and cooking supplies for each group, plus another set for my demonstration. I’ll also need the answer keys for each recipe ready to project after each round. And because I want to start the demonstration right after the entry slip, I’ll make myself a note to have my recipe projected and all of my paper cooking supplies set up before class starts.

Finally, I’ll give each lesson a title that describes its main focus: Day 1 will be Principles of Food Safety, and day 2 will be Practicing Food Safety When Cooking.

And that’s it for the basic lesson plan. At this point, I know what I want students to learn, how I’m going to teach it, what they’re going to do with that learning, how I’ll assess it, how I’ll open and close the lesson, how long everything should take, and what I need to have ready before students walk in the door.

Here are the first two days written out as full lesson plans.

Coming in Part 4: Differentiation

There’s one more layer I still want to add, though, and that’s differentiation. As I’ve been planning this unit, I’ve actually already made some choices that will help meet different student needs, even though I haven’t called them differentiation. In the fourth and final installment of this series, we’ll look at a few basic principles of differentiation, then go back through the unit, identify some of the differentiation choices I already made, and find some additional places where I can adjust the plan to make the learning more accessible and responsive to different students.

Mastering the Lesson Plan is our self-paced online course that will teach you how to build solid, engaging lesson plans and sequence them into comprehensive units of instruction. Whether you’re a brand-new teacher or you just want to tighten up on the fundamentals, this course will give you a clear, practical process for planning instruction from start to finish.