One Lesson, Four Access Points: Differentiating Wyoming Standards Without Creating Four Separate Plans

The Reality Check

I get it. You're teaching HE2.4.4 about recognizing and labeling emotions, and your fourth-grade class has kids reading at a second-grade level, some at a sixth-grade level, three ELL students still building English vocabulary, and a couple who finished the assignment in five minutes and are bored. The idea of differentiating feels like you're planning four separate lessons. You're not. You're planning one lesson with flexible entry and exit points.

Start with One Strong Core Activity

Before you even think about differentiation, build your lesson around something concrete and engaging that all students can access with different levels of support. For HE2.4.4, this might be a "feelings charades" activity where students act out emotions while peers guess. Or you show a short video clip and ask students to identify the character's emotion and what behavior it led to.

This isn't busywork—it's your anchor. Every student participates in the same activity. The differentiation happens in how you support them during and what you ask them to do after.

Differentiate the Input (How They Access Information)

When you introduce emotions linked to behavior, you don't need separate lessons. You need flexible delivery.

• For below-grade learners and ELL students: Pre-teach the emotion vocabulary. Use visuals—faces showing anger, sadness, excitement. Pair each emotion word with a gesture or movement they can repeat. Give them a simplified reference sheet with four basic emotions (angry, sad, happy, scared) with pictures and one sentence describing each. During the whole-class activity, stand near them and whisper the emotion name as they're figuring it out.
• For on-grade learners: Introduce emotions with the standard vocabulary and ask them to think of times they've felt each one. Keep the pace moving.
• For above-grade learners: Add complexity. Ask them to think about secondary emotions—what's the difference between annoyed and furious? Embarrassed and ashamed? Give them a word bank with eight to ten emotions and challenge them to sort them by intensity.

Differentiate the Output (What You Ask Them to Produce)

This is where most differentiation happens, and it's also where teachers multiply their workload unnecessarily. Don't create four different worksheets. Create one task and build in choice about how to show their learning.

Let's say your assignment for HE2.4.4 is: "Show how an emotion links to behavior. Draw or write about a time you felt angry and how your body acted."

• Below-grade/ELL option: They draw themselves feeling angry, label the emotion with a word card you provide, and dictate or write one sentence about what they did (you scribe if needed). This addresses the same standard—they're recognizing the emotion and the linked behavior—but the barrier to completion is lower.
• On-grade option: They write and illustrate a short paragraph about feeling an emotion and how it changed their behavior.
• Above-grade option: They write about a time they managed an emotion—they felt angry but controlled their behavior. Or they describe how the same emotion might lead to different behaviors depending on the situation. This pushes them toward HE2.4.5 (demonstrating control of impulsive behavior).

All three versions address the standard. All three show you whether the student understands the link between emotions and behavior. The cognitive demand is matched to the learner.

Use Anchor Charts and Sentence Stems to Reduce Your Talking

Create one anchor chart with emotion faces and simple sentences: "When I feel ____, my body ____." Post it visibly. During independent work, students can refer to it without raising their hands for help every 90 seconds.

For ELL students, add a visual key right on the anchor chart. For above-grade students, add a secondary chart with more complex sentence starters: "Even though I felt ____, I decided to ____ instead."

You've made one chart. Four different students use it at four different levels.

The Assessment (Your Real Differentiation Proof)

On the Wyoming state test, students will need to demonstrate understanding of HE2.4.4. Your differentiated work isn't lower standards; it's scaffolded practice toward the same standard. During your formative assessments, you're checking understanding the same way for all students—can they name an emotion and describe a linked behavior?—but you're accepting different forms of evidence.

A below-grade student who draws an angry face and points to their fist (showing the linked behavior) understands the same concept as an on-grade student who writes a paragraph about it.

The Workflow Reality

Here's what you're actually planning: one 30-minute lesson with one core activity, one anchor chart, and one assignment with three versions. That's not tripling your workload. You're creating one good lesson and letting students access it differently. Most of your prep time goes to the anchor chart and the core activity—both of which any student in the room benefits from.

The real time-saver? Stop making separate worksheets. Use the same worksheet with different response expectations. A below-grade student's response to "What did you do?" might be three words; an above-grade student's might be a full paragraph. Same prompt, different scaffolding.