How to “Fit It All In” Your Middle School ELA Curriculum

There is so much content to teach in a school year. And it can feel impossible to squeeze it all in. Maybe you feel like you’re rushing through lessons, or you never get to dive deep enough into skills – before you know it, it’s time for the next unit. However, there is a way to fit all of your middle school ELA curriculum into a school year. It’s called alternating units.

I’m sharing what alternating units look like and how you can “fit it all in” to a single school year. To dig deeper into alternating units, grab The Curriculum Carousel workshop!

The Struggles of Teaching Middle School ELA

I didn’t start in middle school ELA. I started as an elementary teacher, where I spent an entire day with students. It was a huge shock when I was expected to teach my whole middle school ELA curriculum with just 50 minutes of class a day.

I’m not the only one to experience that shock. I hear from teachers all the time who feel like they are rushing from one skill to the next, stressing over “falling behind”, and planning disjointed units that barely scratch the surface.

It wasn’t until I used alternating units that the game changed for me. A lot of teachers fear neglecting reading or writing when they alternate, but you actually have more time for each skill – which means students have a deeper understanding and retain the information longer. Plus, you can still read in your writing unit and vice versa.

Now, I’m sharing all my best tips and strategies for alternating units in The Curriculum Carousel workshop!

Your Middle School ELA Curriculum and “Fitting It All In”

When you look at the middle school ELA standards you have to teach every year, it’s probably overwhelming. (At least, it was for me.) And maybe you can’t imagine covering it all. But it is possible – it just takes strategic planning.

Let’s look at how to alternate your units and cover all the standards. This information is coming straight from my workshop, The Curriculum Carousel! If you want more details and support on how to implement this strategy, I highly recommend attending the workshop.

#1 Get Familiar with Alternating Units

The idea behind alternating units is simple. Instead of trying to cram reading, writing, and grammar into 45 minutes, you’re going to alternate between teaching a reading and a writing unit. For example, you might teach realistic fiction for a few weeks, then switch to your narrative writing unit for a few weeks.

The big fear here is that students won’t be reading, writing, and practicing grammar every day. But they will. When teaching narrative writing, you’ll be using mentor texts from fiction novels. When reading nonfiction, students will write reading response questions. And grammar is always thrown in there during warm-ups!

If that sounds a bit mind-boggling, watch The Curriculum Carousel workshop. I’ll show you exactly how to plan daily middle school ELA lessons to “fit it all in”. I even give example schedules for various class lengths!

#2 Determine Your Unit Hierarchy

Next, you want to map out your entire middle school ELA curriculum. I promise it’s easier than it sounds. You’ll want to write down the main units you’ll teach, like nonfiction, argumentative writing, and so on.

Once you know which units you’re teaching, determine the hierarchy. Basically, what order are you teaching them in? There are a few options. You can stick to what your district has told you to do. You can look at the state assessment for middle school ELA and determine the urgency of each unit. Or you can align with your ELA team.

In The Curriculum Carousel workshop, I’ll share my suggested pacing guide for alternating units. You’ll also get an editable version as a bonus, so you can play around with it and make it your own.

#3 Map Out Each Unit

This part gets a bit more challenging. If you watch The Curriculum Carousel, you’ll see my suggested layouts for several units. You’ll also get a unit plan for each of the middle school language arts units. I lay out the units day by day, so you know exactly which standards to teach and when.

If you’re mapping out units on your own, the best way to fit in all the standards from your middle school ELA curriculum is to teach a complete standard strand. That means narrowing in on what your middle school ELA standards require for that unit and then mapping it out across the days within the unit.

The ideal timeframe is to spend about 4 weeks on a unit. For larger units with more standards, it may be a bit longer. I wouldn’t go past 6 weeks.

#4 Plan the Individual Lessons

As I mentioned, a big fear with alternating units is that students will focus only on reading or writing. Therefore forgetting the skills they’ve learned. But the daily lessons are where you’ll actually incorporate it all together – without it being overwhelming.

Start by determining the lesson’s specific standard. This is what you’re focusing on, and what every aspect of the lesson revolves around. Then determine the mentor texts or common texts you’ll use to support that standard (this goes for reading AND writing units). Complete the lessons by guiding students through a mini-lesson and assessing what they learned.

I go more in-depth on this lesson planning approach in The Curriculum Carousel! I laid out the eight steps to planning every lesson. Having this clear structure makes it easy to plan because I know exactly what the day will look like – and I never worry that I’m missing something.

Your Guide to Alternating Units

Ready to give alternating units a try? Grab a seat at The Curriculum Carousel! Instead of stressing over how you’ll “fit it all in”, you’ll have the exact process to cover every standard in your middle school ELA curriculum.

During this workshop, you’ll learn how to “fit in” every ELA standard (without rushing), streamline unit planning, scaffold your lessons with ease, and implement independent reading (without sacrificing instructional time).

I’ve also included some bonuses to make planning even easier. Get the editable pacing guides and unit plans to map out your standards with ease. Plus conference sheets, implementation guides, exit tickets, and more to support your instruction.