The Secret to Planning that Actually Works (and brings joy back to your teaching!)

If you're like me, you've spent hours as a secondary ELA teacher trying to fit in all the different skills you'll need to teach during a school year feeling like you were building a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces. It feels like everything we need to teach is simply impossible: grammar, vocabulary, writing skills, getting kids to capitalize proper nouns for gracious sakes! And on top of that--we want kids to leave us with a life-long love of reading. It feels like a tall order.

The truth is that planning can feel exhausting when we're reinventing the wheel week after week. That's exactly why I wrote my newest book, Read It Write It Love It, a practical, teacher-friendly guide designed to help you plan in a way that is sustainable, joyful, and widly effective for middle and high school ELA. It was also important to me that as a classroom teacher myself, as a teacher trying to get kids to read in the age of smartphones and screens flashing in our kids' faces all day, in a post-COVID era where kids are still experiencing the effects, I was the one writing this book. As a teacher, I wanted to be sure that teachers reading my book had everything they needed to implement the ideas realistically. That's why my book comes with access to a password protected collection of free, editable downloads to use in your classroom.

Today, I want to share a bit of the heart behind my book and give you a few actionable planning ideas you can put into practice immediately, even as a busy teacher.

Why I wrote this book

After 25 years in the classroom, coaching teachers as a local curriculum ambassador, reflecting and rewriting lessons in my own classroom, and researching what works among middle school readers and writers, one truth has become clear: planning is love. When planning is intentional, everthing else gets easier. Engagement, behavior, participation, and even grading is easier with lesson framing focused on what I have dubbed the North Star standards.

The North Star standards are the standards targeted in a unit and measured by mid and end-of-unit assessments. Individually, the North Star standards frame single lessons leading up to assessments with standards based bell ringers to start class and exit tickets to measure students' growing understanding and inform instruction by the end of class.

What teachers will love about this book

In Read It Write It Love it, you will find a plug-and-play planning framework that is structured to save your sanity (and your time!), fit any novel, article, or writing task you teach, and can even work to adapt and polish up the units you currently teach. Here's how it works:

• S is for Standards: Choose North Star standards as a focus for your unit. The book helps you sort out the standards that deserve the most focus for units.

• T is for Text: Choose a heart text to work as the heartbeat behind lessons and units. Choose stretch texts, short, high-level texts that work to increase students' reading comprehension skills.

• E is for Engage: Choose a topic that engages students and works as a gateway to learning. Have fun choosing a topic that piques student interest and makes learning (and teaching) enjoyable!

• P is for Planning from the Assessment: Read It Write It Love It shares multiple end and mid unit assessment ideas by standard. The end and mid unit assessments give your planning direction. They also help you to decide what to keep and cut in terms of lessons AND grading, saving you so much time!

• Up is for getting kids on their feet and learning: In the book, I share ideas for getting kids up on their feet and learning. Replace boring worksheets and slide decks with on-your-feet experiences that not only engage students, but also make learning so much more fun!

The STEP Up system works as a roadmap for planning. No more guessing, scrambling, or reinventing the wheel. With the STEP Up system in your toolbox, planning is easier, more intentional, and leads to greater outcomes than you could ever imagine!

I wrote Read It Write It Love It so teachers like you feel like you're planning alonside a colleague who gets it and who shares everything to help make teaching easier.

Who is this book really for?

Read It Write It Love It is for the teachers who want

• to engage students without doing cartwheels or sacrificing high-quality content

• consistent results without overplanning

• structure without rigidity

• joy back in their classrooms

If you've ever thought, I love teaching, but it's just not sustainable to work this hard, this book is for you. My dream is that my 25 years of experience and research can benefit your classroom today.

Why teachers are already calling this book a game-changer

Teachers who have read the book have shared that this system reduces overwhelm, saves planning time, boosts student engagement, brings back creativity, and makes teaching fun again.

Teacher Kylie M. shared, "Middle school ELA teachers NEED this book to simplify the planning process and really master the nuts and bolts of designing dynamic lessons that stick!"

If you're craving a planning system that lifts you up, I wrote Read It Write It Love It for you. Click here to grab your copy and transform the way you plan. From data collection to assessments, I'll be the colleague by your side sharing ideas and cheering you on along the way.

With the right structure, the right tools, and the right mindset, your classrroom becomes a place where students and teachers thrive, and you deserve that.

Love you, teacher friends. Happy teaching!

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