Set Up Your Classroom

Before School Starts

A thoughtful classroom setup can welcome students, reinforce expectations, and signal that this is a place for meaningful reading, writing, and thinking. You don’t need to have everything perfect on day one—but a few intentional decisions about space and materials go a long way.

Room Arrangement
Wit & Wisdom lessons blend independent work, partner conversations, small groups, and whole-class discussion. Consider flexible seating with clear pathways for movement. Having a plan for how students transition between configurations saves time in every lesson.

Displays
Look at your first module and ask what students will need to see and return to throughout the unit—things such as module questions, anchor charts, vocabulary, and Socratic Seminar sentence frames. Add and remove displays as learning unfolds. Less is more; avoid visual clutter that competes for attention.

Materials
Core texts and journals can live in the classroom and be distributed as needed. If students keep their SEs at their desks, decide in advance how they’ll submit work during or after lessons.