At the end of a semester or class, there might be a unit that, looking back on, brings you shame. Or maybe there’s a unit you or your students dread every year. Winter or summer break could be the perfect time to overhaul that dreaded curriculum. Here are some steps to take to improve your unit.

Improve Your Unit Step #1: Choose One Unit to Focus On

If you’re not happy with how your class went last year, or you’re very excited to make your classes the best they possibly can be, it’s tempting to try and work on everything all at once. 

But don’t. It’s too overwhelming, and your efforts will be scattered. 

Instead, choose one unit to overhaul at a time. During the summer, I think improving one unit and making it freaking awesome is more than enough work. 

(After all, you’re not getting paid any extra for this extra work.)

But if you’re an overachiever, you can attempt to work on multiple units–as long as you take it one at a time.

I recommend choosing the unit that was the biggest flop or the most boring to teach. In my experience, if you didn’t enjoy teaching it, your students probably didn’t enjoy learning from it either.

Improve Your Unit Step #2: Reflect

Take some time to jot down what went well and what didn’t. 

Even if you feel like the whole unit went terribly, there’s probably something good in it. 

Was there a text you or your students enjoyed? A presentation you made that already includes great content? Did you find some enriching YouTube videos you’d like to use again?

Obviously, the more you can reuse, the less work you’ll have to do.

Reflecting on what didn’t go well, though, will also help. 

Did your students fall asleep during your background-building introductory presentation? Did the final project feel rushed with students unable to complete it? 

Make a note of what needs to change as you rebuild your unit.

Improve Your Unit Step #3: Choose One Area of Skills to Focus On

Steps 3 and 4 are intertwined. After you’ve chosen a unit to focus on, decide what skills you’ll want students to focus on.

This will help you focus the assessments, lessons, and activities that you choose to incorporate in your revamped unit. 

Will this unit focus on research skills? Then maybe you can skip lessons on literary elements and focus instead on citing and evaluating sources. 

Do your students need a lot of practice writing? If so, you can choose a short novel or even short stories, so your students will have more time for both short and long writing assignments. 

It might be helpful to take a look at the Common Core State Standards (or whatever benchmarks your district uses). If you have high-stakes testing data, you could also look at that to see where students’ weaknesses tend to lie. 

While you might be able to touch on multiple skills during your unit, you’ll probably only have time to go deeply into one area. Choose before continuing.

Improve Your Unit Step #4: Choose or Tweak Your Summative Assessment

Once you know what skills you want students to focus on, choosing your final assessment should be easy. 

(If you’re changing your whole-class read for this unit, you may want to choose your new text in tandem with this step. To figure out the pacing for a new novel study, see my tips for quickly mapping it here.)

Are students working on speaking skills? Then a speech is a natural choice. 

Are students struggling with grammar? Then maybe you go with an essay or a test. 

Make sure that your big assessment at the end of the unit will align with the skills you intend to focus on in your teaching.

Improve Your Unit Step #5: Choose One Lesson to Make More Engaging

By now, you’ve made all of the big decisions: the unit, the skills, the assessment, and maybe even a new text. 

Now you can focus on the fun stuff–planning your lessons!

Like the steps before this one, I recommend choosing one lesson to focus on. Even revamping one big lesson can have a huge impact on your students. So don’t overwhelm yourself trying to redo every lesson. 

(Unless you switched texts or focuses. In this case, you are starting from scratch. Instead of reinventing the whole wheel, try starting with a curriculum from a colleague or Teachers Pay Teachers.)

Start with your most boring or most important lesson. It might be the introduction lesson that kicks off the whole unit. Or maybe it’s a lesson on a literary element that never quite lands. Perhaps it’s not even a “lesson,” but the way you structure the steps for your major assessment. 

Now, explore different ways to make this lesson more engaging. 

Typically, adding choice, a hands-on component, group work, or multimedia is an efficient way to make a lesson more engaging. 

You might want to read some blog posts or talk to colleagues for inspiration. If you work with an instructional coach, this is where he or she should shine. Your school librarian might even be able to help you try something new. 

If you’re revamping your assessment, try looking into authentic assessments. Content-heavy lessons can often translate well into a classroom scavenger hunt. Here are three more engaging strategies to try with your students.

After you’ve redone your lesson, if you still have the time and energy, you can move on to redoing another one. But remember, not every lesson has to have fireworks. It’s perfectly fine if several of your lessons consist of good ol’ lectures and notetaking!

Improve Your Unit Step #6: Try A New Teaching Technique

As you explore re-structuring your lesson(s), you may come across new techniques, tools, or ideas to try. 

And they might seem clunky, time-consuming, or out of your students’ ability range. 

Push yourself though to try one new technique in your unit. It could be an online tool or program. Maybe it’s the way you structure your class–like having stations or inviting a guest teacher. 

You don’t need every day to be a new strategy. In fact, this could be overwhelming for both you and your students!

But attempting something new a few times a year will keep you growing in your craft and your students excited to see what happens next. 

Conclusion

Overhauling a unit or class can feel pretty daunting. 

The key, however, is to break it up into smaller steps.

Doing this while staying focused on improving one skill in your students will have a huge impact on the success of your unit!