Rebecca Alber has some great ideas for turning what could be an end-of-summer-bummer into a transition experience that will start your school year off the right way. While I do think rehearsal is key to giving any presentation, the tip I plan to use the most is #3: "Over Plan the Lesson." It just makes sense. You are going to have to plan the next lesson anyway, so why not get a head start and be prepared if you need to fill some time at the end of the hour. The students will appreciate that they are not just doing "busy work" and that you really have their best interests at heart. You will also appreciate knowing that you won't have to scramble to put something together that may be meaningless and distracting simply to fill the time before the bell rings.
Ideally, I would like to have entire units prepared in advance; that can be tweaked and molded as needed. This way, if one lesson is shorter than expected, I can keep my students going and get ahead of schedule. By staying ahead, you will have more flexibility to cope with school assemblies, fire drills, and other unexpected events that will take up class time. Having multiple lessons planned in advance is also a good idea in order to stay prepared for an emergency absence. It may even help behavior during the time that you are away because students will understand that it is still business as usual even with a substitute. However, with that said, I would probably still have an alternate supportive learning lesson available for substitutes that do not have a background in my subject matter. Ideas for this in and English classroom might be: re-teaching on how to investigate text; format and write an MLA style paper; cite sources on the web or from a written text; specific grammar related activities with easy to understand, detailed instructions for the teacher; etc.
Work Cited: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/back-to-school-preparing-first-day-rebecca-alber
