I was recently in a planning meeting with a school that doesn’t have clear concepts or big ideas in their curriculum. Teachers and I were mapping out their standards, talking about their scholars, and reflecting on what the learning could be tethered to and what the heart of the inquiry would be. As we got our hands (and minds) into the curriculum and the planning, I sketched this image for the team to consider a process to help us get there. It’s an image I have used many times in this work but never made into a graphic such as this.

An image only takes us so far. The application and implementation within, the balance and process we engage in, the agency and responsiveness demanded, none of it can be encompassed in a single image. But the traction we observed and the work that was done after this process was introduced cannot be ignored.

Hope this helps you in some way take your planning further.