Standards-Aligned Unit Planner

Map a unit against your required standards explicitly, ensuring every lesson connects to clear learning targets, assessments align to specific standards, and coverage gaps are visible before you start teaching.

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

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When to use this template

  • Planning a unit where standards accountability is high (testing, evaluation)
  • Departments or teams that need to ensure vertical alignment across grade levels
  • When you need to document alignment for administrators, coaches, or curriculum reviews
  • Planning in environments with mandated standards that require explicit coverage
  • Any time you want to identify coverage gaps before teaching, not after

Template sections

List all standards this unit addresses and identify which are primary (central to the unit) and which are supporting.

Unit title and duration:

Primary standards (central to instruction and summative assessment):

Supporting standards (addressed but not the main focus):

Prior standards this unit builds on:

Standards addressed in subsequent units:

Break each standard into student-facing learning targets at the appropriate cognitive level.

Standard 1: Student will be able to...

Standard 2: Student will be able to...

Cognitive demand level (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create):

Student-facing language:

Map every lesson in the unit to the specific learning targets it addresses.

Lesson 1: Target(s) addressed:

Lesson 2: Target(s) addressed:

(continue for all lessons)

Gaps identified: learning targets with insufficient lesson coverage:

Design summative and formative assessments that directly measure specific standards at the correct cognitive level.

Summative assessment:

Standards it assesses (and how):

Formative checks by standard:

Cognitive demand of each assessment item vs. the standard:

Plan how to support access for all students across the standards.

Entry point supports for students below grade level:

Extensions for students above grade level:

Language supports:

Access for students with IEPs or 504s:

List the texts, materials, and tools aligned to your standards.

Primary texts or sources:

Supplementary materials:

Digital tools:

Materials to prepare in advance:

The Flip Perspective

Standards alignment works when it shapes both what you teach and how you assess it, not just what you list on a lesson plan. This planner helps you build a unit where every lesson connects to specific standards at the right cognitive level, and every assessment gives you clear evidence of whether students have actually met those standards.

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Adapting this Template

For All Subjects

Apply Standards-Aligned Unit by adapting the phase timings and prompts to fit All Subjects's unique content demands.

About the Standards-Aligned Unit framework

Standards-aligned unit planning is less about choosing a pedagogical model and more about discipline: the discipline of making the connection between what you teach, how you assess, and what students are expected to know explicit and visible throughout the unit.

Why explicit alignment matters: Most teachers know their standards and most teachers plan lessons they believe connect to them. The gap between belief and reality is often wider than expected. Standards-aligned unit planning makes the connection explicit at the design stage, so gaps become visible before instruction, not during a post-unit review.

Reading the standard carefully: Standards are often written more specifically than teachers recall. "Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes" is different from "identify the theme." Careful reading of the standard language often reveals that alignment requires higher-order thinking than what a given lesson actually demands.

Vertical alignment: Standards do not exist in isolation. They connect to what came before and what comes after. Strong standards-aligned planning references what students learned in prior grades or units, so you know what prior knowledge you can build on and where you need to reteach.

Assessment alignment: An aligned unit is not just aligned in instruction. The assessments are directly linked to the standard's verb level (recognize, analyze, evaluate, create). A standard that uses "evaluate" should not be assessed with a multiple-choice test that only requires recognition.

Coverage versus mastery: Standards-aligned unit planning sometimes creates pressure to cover everything. The most effective teachers make deliberate choices about which standards will receive deep treatment (full unit) and which will receive lighter treatment (embedded in other units), rather than skimming all of them shallowly.

This planner walks you through mapping every lesson to a specific standard, ensuring your assessments match the cognitive demand of those standards, and identifying any coverage gaps before instruction begins.

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.

Scope & Sequence

Document the breadth and order of your curriculum: what you will teach (scope) and in what sequence, to ensure coherent vertical alignment and consistent coverage across classrooms or grade levels.

Pacing Guide

Create a realistic week-by-week pacing guide that maps instruction to the school calendar, accounting for testing, holidays, and built-in review time so you know in advance where pacing will be tight.

Year-Long Map

Map your entire course across 36 weeks, organizing units, standards coverage, and major assessments so you can see the full year at a glance and spot gaps before the school year begins.

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Frequently asked questions

It varies by subject and grade, but as a general rule: 3–5 primary standards that receive deep treatment is better than 10–15 standards addressed superficially. Fewer standards, deeper mastery.
Coverage means you addressed the standard. Alignment means your instruction, activities, and assessments all require students to perform at the cognitive level the standard demands. A worksheet where students "identify" something is not aligned to a standard that requires them to "analyze" something.
Identify which units will give the standard primary treatment (where it is explicitly taught and assessed) and which will give it supporting treatment (where it appears but is not the focus). Document this across your year-long plan.
Differentiate the path to the standard, not the standard itself. Students may need different scaffolds, texts, or amounts of time to reach the same learning target. The target stays the same; the support varies.
Ask: could students complete this lesson successfully without actually meeting the standard? If yes, the lesson may be related to the standard without being aligned to it. Alignment means the activity directly requires students to demonstrate what the standard demands.
Standards alignment tells you what students need to learn. Active learning determines how they learn it. A standards-aligned unit maps every lesson to specific learning targets, while Flip missions fill those lessons with student-driven activities: debates, simulations, and investigations that require students to demonstrate the standard in action. Many teachers use this planner for the alignment framework and Flip to generate lessons that meet each standard through hands-on engagement.
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