ELA Unit Planning Guide
This guide provides the framework and classroom resources to help you design an English Language Arts unit for middle or high school students centered around a book of your choosing.
![Three educators smile while sitting together working.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-03/Facing-History_SJLA_015_edit.jpg?h=c7420dc8&itok=PlL1FQ9c)
Teach with Facing History ELA Learning Experiences
Each of our learning experiences provides activities and resources to explore a core Facing History concept or theme while building key literacy skills.
![Student work together in class.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-09/Classroom_Discussion_Los_Angeles_SJLA_2018_FH287382.jpg?h=56d0ca2e&itok=--xgunus)
Coming of Age in a Complex World: A Mini-Course for ELA Educators
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Explore hands-on strategies to teach coming-of-age texts and literature, centering students’ identities and lived experiences as young adults.
![A women concentrates at a table while working on a handout](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-11/Facing-History_SJLA_165.jpg?h=4362216e&itok=Ow7ferS5)
Teaching Strategies
Use our student-centered teaching strategies to strengthen your students’ literacy skills, nurture critical thinking, and build a respectful and collaborative classroom community.
![An educator walks through instructions for a teaching strategy procedure with students.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/Teaching_Strategies_hero.jpeg?h=78a3dfb3&itok=p8BXuMQa)
Borders & Belonging
This modular ELA collection for grades 7–12 invites students to explore the complicated world of belonging and the tangible and intangible borders that shape it.
Indigenous Resistance, Resilience and Resurgence: The Role of Activism
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Toronto, CA
Experience a holistic day of learning that brings together Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee stories, art, spoken word, connection to land, language rights and activism. This event will be hosted in-person.
![Quote reading "Power presents are and design works that reclaim the word’s primary associations with capitalism, state capitalism, colonialism, and neocolonial. The exhibiting artists and designers use their stirring creative practices to reposition the meaning of power as a strength grounded in respectful relationships, nonbinary worldviews, and emotional intelligence, embedded within practices of decolonization, Indigenization and other meaningful methods that decenter, Eurocentric, Western worldviews"](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-05/IMG_1676.jpg?h=1f8cbfdf&itok=QVBDbBIo)
Lost in Translation
Rapper Ruby Ibarra reflects on her Filipino-American experience and the role of language in a spoken-word poem.
![Two students look at each other in conversation. One student is also taking notes.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/ClassroomEvent_2018_%20FH287178.jpg?h=a141e9ea&itok=CX7H4ckw)
Rose, Thorn, Bud Template
Students use this printable template to consider recent successes, challenges, and opportunities they experienced this week.
![Preview of Rose, Thorn, Bud Template handout](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-03/RoseThornBudTeaser.png?h=d3d13267&itok=LC34Ki1w)
Compass Points
Students share what excites them about class, their needs and worries, and suggestions for making the the class a positive learning environment.
![A person holds a compass in their hand with the ocean in the background.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/personholdingblackandwhitecompass_FH2174435.jpg?h=f79ade58&itok=pMJECJqe)
Teach the Teacher Exit Ticket
Use this Exit Ticket Template to give students an opportunity to tell you about themselves at the start of the school year.
![Preview Image of the Teach the Teacher Exit Ticket Template.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-10/Teach%20the%20Teacher%20Exit%20Ticket%20Template%20%281900%20%C3%97%201414%20px%29.png?h=d3d13267&itok=CTRnmL3Y)
Teach the Teacher Exit Ticket (En Español)
Use this Exit Ticket Template, translated to Spanish, to give students an opportunity to tell you about themselves.
![Preview Image of the Teach the Teacher Exit Ticket Template.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-10/Teach%20the%20Teacher%20Exit%20Ticket%20Template%20%281900%20%C3%97%201414%20px%29.png?h=d3d13267&itok=CTRnmL3Y)