ELA Unit Planner

Plan an English Language Arts unit that integrates reading, writing, speaking, and language, organized around anchor texts and an essential question that gives the unit coherence and purpose.

ELAElementary (K–5)Middle School (6–8)High School (9–12)

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When to use this template

  • Planning a multi-week ELA unit around one or more anchor texts
  • When you want to integrate reading, writing, and discussion in a coherent arc
  • Literature units or nonfiction inquiry units
  • Argument writing units that center on a rich text or set of sources
  • Any ELA unit where you want students to read deeply and write with genuine purpose

Template sections

Name the unit, identify anchor texts, and write the essential question that will drive literacy inquiry.

Unit title and duration:

Essential question:

Anchor text(s) (title, author, genre):

Key standards (reading, writing, speaking, language):

Map the reading sequence: anchor texts, supplementary texts, and the close reading activities for each.

Reading schedule (by week):

Close reading passages (shorter excerpts for deep analysis):

Reading for fluency and background knowledge:

Vocabulary development plan:

Reading supports for diverse learners:

Plan regular discussion activities: Socratic seminars, literature circles, structured academic controversy, or small-group discussions.

Discussion types and protocols:

Discussion questions (by week or text):

Participation structures and norms:

Discussion reflection routine:

Map the writing across the unit, from low-stakes response writing to the final summative piece.

Low-stakes writing (journals, exit tickets, quick writes):

Process writing (drafts, feedback cycles):

Summative writing task (genre, prompt, length):

Grammar and language instruction woven into writing:

Design formative checks and the summative writing task, including the rubric criteria.

Formative checks (by week):

Summative task description:

Rubric criteria:

Revision and feedback process:

Plan supports for diverse readers and writers.

Reading supports (audio, adjusted texts, graphic organizers):

Writing supports (sentence frames, planning templates, scaffolded drafts):

Extensions for advanced readers and writers:

Language supports for ELL/EAL students:

The Flip Perspective

ELA units work when reading, writing, and discussion connect to each other and build toward something meaningful. This planner helps you design a unit where anchor texts do real work: as objects of analysis, as mentor texts for writing, and as shared ground for discussion.

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Adapting this Template

For ELA

For literacy lessons, ELA Unit helps scaffold close reading and analytical writing with clear thinking phases.

About the ELA Unit framework

A strong ELA unit connects reading, writing, speaking, and language skills around meaningful texts and ideas, not as isolated skill strands but as an integrated literacy experience. Students read closely, discuss critically, write with purpose, and develop language understanding all within a coherent unit arc.

The text-centered unit: ELA units work best when organized around a few anchor texts that students read deeply rather than many texts read shallowly. An anchor text provides a common ground for discussion, gives students something concrete to reference in their writing, and makes the essential question tangible.

Reading and writing connection: The most effective ELA units connect reading and writing explicitly. Students write about what they read, in forms that mirror what they read. If they are reading argument, they write argument. If they are reading personal narrative, they write personal narrative. The unit's anchor text serves as both a reading experience and a writing mentor text.

Discussion as a bridge: Academic discussion is the bridge between reading and writing. Students who talk through their thinking about a text first write more sophisticated essays about it. Building regular discussion into an ELA unit is not a nice-to-have; it is a fundamental component of the learning.

Close reading versus wide reading: Strong ELA units include both. Close reading of anchor texts develops precision, analytical depth, and vocabulary. Wide reading of supplementary texts builds background knowledge, exposes students to multiple perspectives, and increases fluency. Both are necessary.

Assessment in ELA: The summative task in an ELA unit should require students to produce writing that demonstrates both content understanding and skill development. A text-based essay that asks students to take a position using evidence from the anchor texts is typically the strongest choice.

Thematic Unit

Organize a multi-week unit around a central theme or essential question that cuts across topics, texts, and disciplines, helping students see connections and build deeper understanding.

ELA Unit

Plan an English Language Arts unit that integrates reading, writing, speaking, and language, organized around anchor texts and an essential question that gives the unit coherence and purpose.

Backward Design Unit

Plan your unit from the end backward: identify the desired results first, then design assessments, and finally plan learning experiences that build toward them. Clear goals, coherent instruction.

ELA Rubric

Build an ELA rubric for writing, reading analysis, or discussion, with criteria for ideas, evidence, organization, style, and conventions calibrated to your specific task type and grade level.

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Frequently asked questions

One primary anchor text read in full, plus 2–4 shorter supplementary texts, is usually more effective than multiple longer works. Depth of engagement with a single rich text produces more sophisticated thinking than breadth across many texts.
Teach grammar in the context of the students' own writing. If students are writing argument, teach sentence structures that argument writers use. If they are writing narrative, teach techniques from the anchor text. Grammar taught in isolation is rarely retained.
Use low-stakes writing as a reading response tool throughout the unit: short journal responses, exit tickets, quick writes. These build writing fluency and deepen reading comprehension simultaneously without requiring separate writing instruction time.
Use a simple, transparent protocol. Students self-assess their discussion participation against criteria (contributing ideas, building on others, using text evidence, asking questions). Teacher assessment of discussion is most productive when observational, not evaluative.
Use flexible grouping based on the task, not the student. For close reading, all students work with the same text but with different levels of support (graphic organizers, audio versions, partner reading). For writing, provide tiered scaffolds that students self-select based on their current needs.
Absolutely. Active learning in ELA means students are analyzing texts through structured discussion, debating interpretations, and writing with genuine purpose, not passively receiving information about literature. Flip missions turn individual lessons into collaborative activities where students might stage a trial of a literary character, argue for competing interpretations using textual evidence, or investigate a theme across multiple sources. Teachers use this planner for the reading and writing arc and Flip to generate the daily lessons that make the texts come alive.
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