How to teach a class with no textbook or curriculum
Building an entire scope, sequence, and daily lesson plans from scratch forces teachers to reinvent the wheel every single night. Designing multiple levels simultaneously creates an unsustainable workload that leaves educators completely exhausted.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Searching for Facebook groups and online communities where fellow teachers share pacing guides and activitiesDid this help you?
- 2Buying external lesson plans, books, and workbooks from marketplaces like Teachers Pay TeachersDid this help you?
- 3Creating a standardized daily classroom routine or template so that only the lecture portion requires active planningDid this help you?
- 4Purchasing old textbooks off Amazon to use as a baseline for sequencing and pacingDid this help you?
- 5Putting up completed art projects, posters, and student-made positivity jarsDid this help you?
- 6Displaying available student work such as letters to future teachers, math review assignments, and journal entriesDid this help you?
- 7start with the school-provided textbook as a fallback and create own lessons laterDid this help you?
- 8establish consistent daily routines for studentsDid this help you?
- 9Abandoning the pacing guide and moving on with lessons whether students understand the material or notDid this help you?
- 10Providing basic tools like multiplication chartsDid this help you?
- 11Using the backward design method by creating the final assessment first and planning lessons to meet it.Did this help you?
- 12Writing single concepts on post-it notes and rearranging them on a blank physical calendar.Did this help you?
- 13Borrowing unit plans from experienced teachers or buying them on TeachersPayTeachers.Did this help you?
- 14Looking up 'Evidence Statements' in state standards to turn broad goals into actionable daily objectives.Did this help you?
- 15Using AI to help generate lesson ideas.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I teach two traditionally boring classes that don’t have a curriculum or text book, so I’m basically doing the entire scope and sequence by myself and feel like I’m reinventing the wheel trying to make new lesson plans every night”source ↗
“What are some tips you guys have to plan out units quickly? Got hired only a few days before the beginning of the year and would love to get ahead on planning before the holidays!”source ↗
“I was given the green light to basically create the lesson plan from scratch and just used those books as reference.”source ↗
“I’m trying to survive this week but I don’t really have any assignments to give.”source ↗
“It’s my first year teaching Algebra 1. I’m winging it. I had to make my own curriculum and had to restructure it last week because I, frankly, have no guidance and no idea what I’m doing.”source ↗
“We don’t have a specific curriculum for social studies and science, we just use state standards and go from there.”source ↗
“I teach an elective that also doesn't have a textbook. There are two levels of it, so I am designing curriculum for students who have taken my class earlier so I can't reuse the same thing in both classes. It is completely exhausting.”source ↗
“It’s a very underfunded private school. So yes”source ↗
“The class is completely empty - no books, no posters on the wall, no supplies like pens or a stapler or glue etc., and the sub before me did not do a ton of work with them from what I can see. I have zero plans or lessons to work with and am absolutely winging it.”source ↗
“The principal wants work out on their desks to show what they've been doing and I'm worried it will look pathetic.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3Where are all the intermediate tutorials and deep technical guides?
- 5How to learn NetSuite without a corporate subscription
- 3How to build internal tools without developers when no-code fails
- 3How to plan lessons with no prep time
- 2How to start as a new TPM with no documentation or priorities
- 9How do you pace a new curriculum when you're forced to move too fast?