Henry Mahegan: Reflection on my Planning Process

In planning for Civics for Boston Youth this year I’ve pretty much followed the same process I used as a BTR resident. When I begin a new unit I look over the suggested pacing guide that we were given at the beginning of the year. I also look at the activity suggestions, vocabulary words, and suggested readings in order to sketch out a short curriculum map. Calling it a “map” is actually an exaggeration. It looks more like something sketched on the back of a napkin, but I find it incredibly helpful. Once I have a good idea of what I want to cover and how I plan to do it, I write up Unit Overview, which usually takes up about a third of a page. I print it and cut it into slips so that my students can glue it onto the first page of every unit. On the first day of each unit we discuss the essential questions as well as the scope and focus. For each unit I plan at least one day of review before the test.

As far as planning each individual lesson, I am admittedly a procrastinator. Although there are definitely exceptions – especially for lessons that span two days or for long-term projects – most of my day-to-day planning occurs the night before each lesson. I begin by looking at what objectives I want to achieve in that day’s lesson. I teach almost all of my lessons through PowerPoint slide, and after the Do Now, the second slide of every presentation is a look at that day’s objectives. At this point the students have grown accustomed to learning about the day’s questions, but I do this more for myself because I think it keeps my focused during the planning process. Next I will look at the suggested activities in the resource packet. I have found many of them to be excellent, but I have also made changes or borrowed from a couple different lessons to make something of my own. Most of those changes have to do with material that we have either skipped or have not yet covered, or with terminology with which I can foresee my students struggling. Once I have identified an appropriate activity for the day’s lesson, I put together a notes slide which I try to animate with as many pictures as possible when time allows. So far this year I have been pretty successful in generating those notes straight from either the Government Alive! text, We The Students, or some of the other materials we got over the summer.

In addition to leaning on those texts for notes, I have also used a lot of the diagrams and political cartoons from Government Alive! I probably end up scanning at least one or two images from that text during each unit to use as Do Nows. I have used some of the diagrams for in-class activities like sorting, act-it-outs, carousels, and gallery walks among others.

I have found the materials we received at the beginning of the year to be incredibly helpful. There have been many times where I have been struggling to find the right activity or illustration and then discovered exactly what I was looking for on the resource DVD or in a text. I rely on the course materials on an almost daily basis and don’t know where I would be without them. That said – and this is truly a minor criticism – I have found some of the language to be confusing for my students, especially my second language learners. The resource that has been most problematic in that regard is We The Students. Some of the descriptions of court cases are heavy with advanced academic language. Although I have still found the book very useful, I have often had to re-write entire passages before using them in class. One thing that I know would be very helpful for me would be if there were more lesson plans posted from previous years, but then again, I guess that’s why we’re putting in all this time now.

Anyway, that’s my planning process in a nutshell. I’m going to try to upload a bunch of student work later tonight, but I want to apologize in advance. I’m definitely going to miss that 5:00 pm deadline again. Thanks and I’ll see you guys tomorrow.