Mapping Your Curriculum Like It’s a Road Trip

Taking time to think about where you are going and how you will get there is one of the most important things you can do as the new school year begins. As an instructional coach at a K–6 elementary school, I often work with teachers to unpack district curriculum and grade-level standards to plan for the year ahead.

Curriculum mapping reminds me of preparing for a road trip. My family once spent six weeks driving across the country. Before we left, we hung up a map and thought about where we wanted to go. We figured out how long it would take to get to our farthest destination and how long it would take to get back. Then we put pins in the major destinations we wanted to see along the way. We figured out how much time we could spend at each place. It took some math and compromise, because we simply could not fit everything in, and we had a firm end date by which we needed to return.

Once we hit the road, things did not go perfectly. We hit unexpected traffic jams and spent too much time on our favorite hike—which set us off course from our original plan. We had to adjust along the way and make changes. Our plan helped us know when we needed to pick up the pace a little bit if we wanted to accomplish all we had set off to do.

I often think of curriculum mapping the same way. At the start of each school year, I sit down with my curriculum guide, as if it were a road map, and ask myself some questions.

What This Looks Like in Practice

How long do I have for this trip? Determine how many instructional days you have with your students. Know there will be inevitable interruptions along the way (snow days, field trips, etc.), so set realistic expectations and plan to do the best you can with the time you have.

What are the major destinations I need to hit along the way? Look at the curriculum and grade-level standards you will be teaching this year. Our language arts curriculum, for example, is broken up into four modules that shape the year. Determine how long you have to spend on each module, and map them out as your major destinations, knowing ahead of time which month(s) you will be spending with each one.

What will I do when I am there? Once you know which months will be spent on each module, or main topic, break it down into smaller units to be taught. Our curriculum is broken into three units for each module, which increase in complexity as students build skills. Know ahead of time how many weeks you have to focus on each unit and the main standards you will be teaching in each one.

What do I need to do to get us there? To teach the main standards of each unit, look at the lessons you need to teach to accomplish those goals. In our curriculum, teachers are expected to teach one lesson a day, which is often hard to do. Prioritize the most important skills you want your students to learn, and determine how to accomplish those goals in the time allotted. Pacing each lesson becomes very important to get you to all the places you want to go.

How will I spend each day? When looking at each lesson, teachers decide how to shape the learning to engage their students and prioritize what their students need to learn. The curriculum guides can help you with this, but it is the teachers’ voice and skill in implementing these lessons that makes the learning come alive.

Is there one destination that really matters to me? When looking at your modules for the year, think about how to make the curriculum your own. Is there one module that particularly interests you? Maybe there’s one for which you could plan a memorable culminating activity to celebrate student work (like a poetry café to highlight students’ writing). Or perhaps one that includes place-based learning unique to your school (like a visit to a local river for a module on water conservation).

Integrating activities like these into the curriculum makes it more meaningful, which is why I encourage teachers to spend a little extra time on them. (Which may mean spending a little less time on another module.)

How do I document and assess my time? Plan for how and when you will assess your students’ learning along the way, so you can adapt and adjust your instruction to meet their needs. Our curriculum has two assessments built into each unit. I encourage teachers to print them out and take the assessments themselves ahead of time so they know what their students will be assessed on. This helps them prioritize key standards.

By thinking of your curriculum in terms of a road map, you can plan for the important milestones ahead. You can decide where you might want (or need) to linger, where to integrate meaningful project- or place-based activities connected to your local community, and ways to make the learning engaging.

But most important, you will know where you are going and how much time you can spend at each stop. Be gentle with yourself along the way. There will be traffic and roadblocks that will slow you down. Do the best you can without expecting perfection. If you keep moving and making adjustments along the way, you will get to all your important destinations.