Planning Powerful Instruction, Grades 6-12: 7 Must-Make Moves to Transform How We Teach--and How Students Learn

Are you ready to plan your best lessons ever?

With so many demands and so much content available for teachers, we need to put a higher value on an often-overlooked skill: planning learning experiences that will both engage and inspire our students, by design, over time.

Planning Powerful Instruction is your go-to guide for transforming student outcomes through stellar instructional planning. Its seven-step framework—the EMPOWER model—gives you techniques proven to help students develop true insight and understanding. You’ll have at your fingertips:

1. the real reasons why students engage—and what you must do to ensure they do
2. a framework to help you create, plan, and teach the most effective units and lessons in any subject area
3. more than 50 actionable strategies to incorporate right away
4. suggestions for tailoring units for a wide range of learners
5. downloadable, ready-to-go tools for planning and teaching

Whether you are a classroom teacher, an instructional leader, or a pre-service teacher, Planning Powerful Instruction will forever change the way you think about how you teach and the unique value you bring to your learners.

About the Authors:

A classroom teacher for fifteen years, Jeffrey D. Wilhelm? is currently Professor of English Education at Boise State University. He works in local schools as part of a Virtual Professional Development Site Network sponsored by the Boise State Writing Project, and regularly teaches middle and high school students. Jeff is the founding director of the Maine Writing Project and the Boise State Writing Project.

After 8 years as a classroom teacher, Rachel Bear spent two years as co-director of the Idaho Core Coaches for the Idaho State Department of Education, supporting teachers in implementing the Next Generation Standards. She currently is a Senior Program Associate for the National Writing Project (NWP). Her work at NWP involves supporting the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP), which focuses on improving academic writing in rural school districts. 

Adam Fachler is a strategist, coach, and consultant for Pre-K-12 teachers and educational leaders throughout New York. Formerly a middle school teacher, staff developer, and intern principal, he left the classroom in 2014 to co-found the School in the Square, a public charter school in Washington Heights. In addition to creating the EMPOWER framework, Adam is also a leading expert in Thinking Maps®―a visual language for learning―and leads acclaimed regional certification workshops in the methodology. In all his work, Adam strives to provide educators with the engaging professional development that they deserve. Adam lives with his wife Liz in Brooklyn, NY.