Differentiate one lesson for the range actually in the room

Take this lesson and differentiate it for the range of learners in my class, in a single plan I can teach from.

Subject and grade: {{e.g. 7th grade life science}}
Standard or learning objective: {{paste the standard, or describe what students should be able to do by the end}}
Period length: {{minutes}}
The core lesson as I currently teach it: {{paste your outline, activity, or text — rough is fine}}
The spread in the room: {{e.g. 28 students; 5 reading two grade levels below; 3 with IEPs — describe the accommodations; 4 multilingual learners at beginning to intermediate proficiency; 3 who finish everything early}}
Materials I actually have: {{e.g. one class set of Chromebooks, printed text, no lab equipment}}

Build:

**The through-line.** The one idea every student leaves with, in a sentence, regardless of which version of the task they did. Everything below has to serve this, and a student on the scaffolded path must reach the same idea rather than a smaller one.

**A timed plan for the period.** Minute ranges, what I am doing, what students are doing. Mark the two or three points where the class splits into different tasks, and what I am watching for at each split to decide who goes where.

**Scaffolds, with removal criteria.** For students working below grade level: the specific supports — sentence frames, a partially completed organizer, a chunked text, a worked example. For each support, state what a student has to demonstrate before it comes off. A scaffold with no removal condition becomes a permanent ceiling.

**Language support by proficiency.** For multilingual learners: the vocabulary to pre-teach (limit it to the words that block access to the content, not every unfamiliar word), sentence frames at beginning and intermediate levels, and which parts of the task can be shown rather than written.

**Accommodations that hold the rigor.** For the IEP accommodations I listed: how each one changes the access to the task without changing what the task demands. Say plainly if one of my accommodations, applied literally, would lower the cognitive demand, and give the alternative that does not.

**Extension for the students who finish first.** Depth rather than more volume. Three tasks that go further into the same idea, not the next unit and not busywork.

**Formative check.** One check I can run in under five minutes that tells me who reached the through-line, with the specific responses that indicate not-yet, partly, and got-it. Include what I reteach tomorrow for each.

**The cut list.** If the period runs short, what I drop in order, and what must not be dropped.

Write the student-facing text at the reading level for each version. Where a state standard would be helpful, ask me which state rather than guessing at the code.

Tip: If you are on Claude for Teachers, name your state when it asks — the standards mapping is built in and the alignment comes back specific rather than generic.