The lesson plan is the easy part. The rationale is what is being graded
Most teachers can produce a workable unit. What graduate curriculum coursework assesses is whether you can justify it: why this sequence, why this assessment, why this activity for these students, connected to something other than experience.
Get your free quote
We reply within 1 business hour, no delays.
No card details required · 100% confidential · On time, or it's free
Backward design, and actually working backward
Backward design asks you to start from what students should be able to do, then decide what evidence would show it, then plan instruction. Most submitted units were designed forward, from activities, and then relabelled. Graders can tell, usually because the assessment does not measure the stated outcome.
Standards alignment is where the second batch of points sits. Citing a standard at the top of a unit is not alignment. Alignment means the objectives, the instruction and the assessment all target what the standard actually says, including its cognitive level. A standard asking students to analyze is not met by a unit that asks them to identify.
Differentiation is the third, and it is usually the thinnest section. Naming three groups and saying you would provide extra support is not a plan. What changes, for whom, in content, process or product, and how you know they need it.
- Genuine backward design, not activities relabelled
- Alignment at the cognitive level the standard names
- Differentiation specific enough to act on
- A rationale grounded in learning theory, not only in experience
What we work on
Your own unit and your own rubric
- Unit and lesson plan structure for graduate coursework
- Writing measurable objectives at the right cognitive level
- Assessment design that actually measures the objective
- Differentiation and UDL written as concrete plans
- Rationales connected to learning theory and to evidence
Your unit, your classroom
- We do not write your unit plans, lesson plans or rationales.
- We do not supply completed curriculum documents to adapt.
- We do not complete work you will submit under your own name.
- We teach the frameworks, review what you built, and explain where the alignment breaks.
- We do not tell you how to teach your own students.
Materials you create for coursework may also be used in your classroom, which is fine and is part of the point. It has to be yours for both uses. Read the full policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Starting from the desired results, then determining acceptable evidence, then planning the learning experiences. The order matters because it prevents planning activities and retrofitting an assessment. Most units graded down for alignment were designed forward.
Use a verb that names an observable behavior at the cognitive level you want, add the conditions and the criterion. Students will understand fractions is not measurable. Students will compare two fractions with unlike denominators and justify which is larger, correctly in four of five items, is.
Enough that another teacher could implement it. Which students, identified how, receiving what specific change to content, process or product. A general statement about supporting diverse learners is the version that reliably loses points.
Most graduate C and I rubrics expect it in the rationale. The aim is connecting your design decisions to something beyond preference. Naming a theorist and then writing an unconnected rationale is the common half-credit version.
Usually yes, and it often produces the strongest work because you know how it actually goes. The task is then to make the reasoning explicit and check the alignment, which frequently reveals gaps that were invisible in practice.
Send the unit and the rubric
We will check whether the assessment measures the objective, whether the alignment holds at the cognitive level, and what the differentiation section needs.
Get My Unit Reviewed