ABSTRACT
Effective planning is a necessary and essential ingredient of effective teaching. Planning has special importance in broad content areas like social studies where there is so much information. At some point in planning, a teacher needs to be concerned with the learning outcomes that he or she wants to occur as a result of the instruction. Long-range planning starts well before the school year begins, at which point the teacher creates a curriculum map/guide for a specific subject for the upcoming school year/semester. This chapter looks at using and adapting different planning units, beginning with expanded textbook units. For teachers who use textbook-centered units, there is common reading material containing the same information for all students. If the teacher begins with concern for how a unit plan can bring significant learning, then all other kinds of needed changes fall into place.
