In my first months as a social studies teacher, I struggled each time I sat down to plan lessons for the upcoming school week. When I opened my laptop each weekend, I spent hours at a time trying to figure out a basic class period. I could not understand how lesson planning seemed so easy to my more experienced colleagues. As I progressed through my first school year—daunted, determined, and eager to improve—I began to learn valuable teaching strategies and engaging student activities to fill my lesson plans. This was a formative time in my development as an educator—but I had yet to learn the most critical component of lesson planning.

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