In the classroom, teachers are used to condensing or crunching a unit. However, every once in a while, you need to stretch a unit. This seems like such a simple task, but it exercises a whole different set of muscles. Stretching a unit is like reaching into a different, dusty part of your teacher toolbox.
One of my classroom neighbors recently found himself in this situation. We were one week from the end of term, and he felt his students were finished with the current unit. All that was left to do was take the test, but he didn’t want to start a new unit with one week left before term break. He needed to stretch a unit and was pressed for how to proceed.
Because that’s such an unusual spot to find yourself in, I wanted to put together a list of 9 low-stress strategies you can use when you need to stretch a unit.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read the Terms of Use.
While reading and writing skills overlap and intersect in the ELA classroom, oftentimes I find myself in a reading-heavy or writing-heavy unit. For this reason, I wanted to divide this into two parts: how to stretch a unit focused on reading and how to stretch a unit focused on writing.
I also wanted to focus on strategies that wouldn’t require teachers to recreate the wheel or design brand new lessons. (When you’re trying to stretch a unit, you don’t need any extra drama.) I also emphasized ideas that would grade easily and/or that would not require grading at all.
How to Stretch a Reading Unit
First, task cards are one of my favorite classroom tools. I love task cards because they are flexible: they can be bell work or exit tickets. However, task cards can also become the bulk of the lesson. When I need task cards to be the lesson, I either set them out in stations or use them as a classroom game.
Stations are a fairly easy option to stretch a unit: just choose the 5-10 task cards or stations you want and position them strategically throughout the room. For a task-card-based game, divide students into teams, set your rules for points and missed answers, and start your game. Personally, I would go for trashketball in this situation. Because I love task cards so much, I have several sets that are ready to go today:
Another option way to stretch a unit is with poetry pairings. Sometimes your textbook has suggested poetry pairings. However, my favorite option is to ask students to visit Poetry Foundation or Poets.org and challenge them to find a poem that suits the themes of whatever we’re reading in class. Then, students read and annotate the poem. At this point, students can turn in their annotations and be done.
If you need to stretch the unit more, students can write a paragraph explaining their poem choice and how it relates to the their reading. Another step is to ask students to share their poem and annotations with the class. A variation of this unit is to have students find a poem that suits their independent reading rather than a whole-class novel. These are some of my favorite poetry pairings:
- The Odyssey poetry pairings
- Things Fall Apart poetry pairings
- The Great Gatsby poetry pairings
- To Kill a Mockingbird poetry pairings
Literary analysis stations are probably my favorite way to stretch a unit. For one thing, literary analysis stations don’t feel like a cheat code. Plus, stations can be tailored to suit the needs of your students. For example, you can add a silent reading station, a missing work station, or reading/writing conference station. These are my favorite literary analysis stations that work with any novel and can stretch a unit:
Because reading and writing intersect, creative writing activities can pair nicely with a literature unit. Creative writing activities are often fun and engaging, but they can also hone in on skills like tone, figurative language, and characterization. Creative writing projects can also be as elaborate or simple as you need them to be, so whether you need a single or multi-day activity, these can help you to stretch a unit:
- Take up a little time: Write a letter to or from one of the characters
- Use up a little more time: Design a concrete poem based on the reading
- Stretch a unit for 2-3 days: Try the Book Cover Design Project
How to Stretch a Writing Unit
Peer editing is maybe the easiest way to stretch a writing unit. Your requirements for peer editing can be as simple or elaborate as you’d like. I use these Peer Editing Tickets because they encourage collaboration and recognize the strengths of each student. We spend about half of the class filling out our Peer Editing Tickets and then about half of the class applying the suggestions our peers have provided.
For something a little more elaborate, challenge students to design a text feature or infographic to accompany their writing. Review types of text features with these task cards, and then ask students to choose 1-2 text features to incorporate into their work. For more elaborate infographics, students can use a design program like Canva. Student-designed text features and infographics are something I usually end up having to cut from a writing unit, so I get excited if I have time to incorporate them. I love these kinds of activities because they encourage students to think strategically to enhance their writing.
When students have been writing research papers, I have two favorite suggestions that can help stretch a unit:
- First, a mini-research conference requires almost no prep. Simply give students guidelines for making an informal presentation, give them some time to prepare, and then begin to share. I prefer to do this kind of presentation “science fair-style” with half of the students assigned to a position in the room and then the other half rotating through to listen to several mini-presentations rapid fire. Halfway through the class, students switch places with a peer and the original speakers become the audience.
- Second, for a more rigorous option, ask students to turn their Works Cited page into an Annotated Bibliography. This is particularly good for upperclassmen who may encounter annotated bibliographies in higher education.
Using Student-Designed Test Prep to Stretch a Unit
Finally, student-designed test prep is a good option to stretch a unit. Provide students with some guidelines for test prep (kinds of questions, types of questions, number of questions), and let them create a game or activity. Teachers can decide how much guidance they want to give students. For example, teachers could say, “write a question about tone” or “write a question about the tone of this poem” or “write a multiple-choice question about the tone of this poem.”
For a low-tech option, divide students into partners, give each team a piece of chart paper, and ask them to write their question(s) on one side and a detailed answer key on the other. Then, hang the chart paper around the room, and students will rotate through the posters with their peers to prepare for the test. This works particularly well when you have more than one section of the same class because then students can also practice with questions from another group of students.
For a high-tech option, choose a Jeopardy template (or similar game) online. Post the template on your Google Classroom and give students editing rights. Establish clear expectations for typing in a collaborative space. Next, assign each student to a specific slide and ask them to create the question, typing their answer key in the speaker notes. Then, the class plays the game together and reviews for the upcoming test.
Pro-tip: decide if students can write “nonsense” answers to multiple-choice questions. I call these “banana” answers, and I typically do not allow them in student-designed test prep. For one, they are distracting and won’t ever appear on a classroom test. For another, I want students to spend their time thinking about plausible and reasonable answers so they can prepare to avoid common pitfalls when they take the assessment.
