lesson plan for writing a resume

• Exploration
• Interviewing
• 01 Overview

03 Pick an activity

04 cool down, how to build a standout resume lesson.

3 Activities

Low threshold, high ceiling

Common Core Standards

Lesson approved by India Miles

You'll need

If you’re here, it means you’re looking for ways to teach your high school students professional skills. This 60-minute lesson plan has everything you need to teach your students resume-writing skills so they can write resumes that grab employers’ attention and, most importantly, lead to interviews. It includes materials, learning objectives and standards, activities and instructions, and student handouts. We also recommend tech tools that you can use to make the learning experience fun and interactive for your students.

Learning objectives.

• Students will learn about the importance of tailoring their resume to their audience.
• Students will draft a resume for a fictional student in response to a sample job posting.
• Students will write accomplishment statements they can use on their resumes.
• Students will learn about three common resume formats, and how to choose which format is best for them.
• Students will draft a complete resume they can continue to refine and tailor.
• Students will gain confidence and feel more comfortable about drafting and tailoring resumes for future job applications.

Downloadable resources

• Complete resume writing lesson plan Document download
• Resume writing lesson powerpoint slides Document download
• Resume writing self-assessment handout Document download
• Download all Download

Get students warmed up and ready to tackle the next activity with a quick Do Now and Debrief, and Framing to help them understand the importance of resume building.

When students enter the classroom or sign into class online, project the slide that asks the following questions. You can also use a collaborative tool like Padlet and post the question there:

What is a resume anyway? How are they used and why do they matter?

Debrief Do Now

Invite students to share out. If you use Padlet, give students the opportunity to read each other’s responses before they share. If you’re teaching in person, you can cold call or ask for volunteers. Online, you can ask students to type in the chat box. As students are sharing, note patterns that come up in their responses.

Once several students share, emphasize that a resume is a document that helps potential employers understand who you are when applying for a job:

“You might think that your resume’s goal is to win you a great job. That’s true in the long-run. But in the hiring process, a resume’s greatest impact comes when you first apply for the job. That’s when a company decides whether you’ll be one of a very few applicants who are invited to a job interview.”

Framing: Why do we need to learn this?

It’s important to format your resume in a way that allows recruiters and hiring managers to easily scan and identify your qualifications as they pertain to a specific job opportunity. They’re looking for one thing: how precisely your resume matches the requirements of the job they want to fill.

Recruiters spend an average of about six seconds reviewing a resume before making a decision to: a) continue reading, b) maybe save for later, or c) abandon and move on. And in some companies, the “person” measuring how well you match up isn’t a human at all! It’s a computer program on the lookout for key words and phrases.

Your resume needs to make a great first impression and fast. How can you write a resume that will help you get in the door? How do you get started?

Optional: You may want to show this video clip (5:54).

Pick an activity

Pick one activity to do in a single class period or do all three across multiple classes. each is around 30 minutes and designed to stand on its own—but they also work well together.

Understanding your audience jigsaw

Students will work together to prepare a resume based on a fictional profile.

Developing your resume content glow and grow

Students will practice writing Accomplishment Statements.

Build your resume

Students will build their own resume based on common resume formats.

Whether you did one activity or all three, give students the opportunity to reflect and set goals afterwards. These self-assessments will also help you figure out what you need to do next to help them meet the learning objectives/grow stronger resume skills.

Here are some suggestions:.

No matter which activity you did, give students the opportunity to reflect and set a goal for their next steps. These self-assessments will also help you figure out what you need to do next to help them meet the learning objectives and grow stronger in resume-writing skills. Here are some suggestions:

You can use a tool like Mentimeter or Poll Everywhere to do a pulse check. Ask students on a scale of 1-5 (1 not confident, 5 ready to tailor their resume now), how prepared they feel to draft and tailor their resumes for potential employers. This information is also helpful for you, as you can use their responses to think about how much more guidance they need and whether or not you want to dig deeper into this skill.

Create a Google Form that gives students a place to reflect and set a goal. Here are some questions you might include:   

• How prepared do you feel to draft and tailor resumes for potential employers?
• What aspect of the resume-writing process do you feel most confident about?
• What part of your resume do you want to work on next?
• What do you need more help with?

Encourage students to continually assess their resumes, and adapt them as their goals change and as they gain experience. Remind them to consider format and content. Here are some questions they can ask themselves:

• Will my resume stand out in a pile?
• Have I considered the employer’s perspective?
• Have I shown the employer I can do the job?
• Do the headings I use and their order reflect what is most important to the position?
• Do my bullet points include details about the quality and impact of my past work—the “So what?”
• Can I say the same thing with fewer words?
• Is it free of spelling and grammar errors?
• Have I asked someone to proofread it and offer feedback?
• Is my name and key contact information up-to-date and clearly visible on every page?
• Is the text (font and size) easy to read?
• Is there enough white space?
• Is my formatting consistent?

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How to teach resume writing to your high school students

If we are teaching our students how to write literary analysis essays about the symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby, then we also should be teaching our students how to write effective resumes that will get them jobs. In fact, I think the latter is more important, and I say this as a teacher who is obsessed with Gatsby. (Just stalk my Instagram.) But I’m not trying to call you out or shame you for not teaching resume writing in your English class. I actually never taught resumes until this year, when I was tasked with the responsibility of teaching a new senior English Elective, “Technical Communication.” After taking on this class and teaching resumes, I am wholeheartedly convinced that every single student should be required to create a resume before graduating high school.

Teaching resume writing was not an easy task for me or my students, but we learned a lot in the process. Drafting a resume is about more than practicing “real life” writing or becoming an employable job candidate. It’s about growing as a human being. Writing a resume requires introspection, self-awareness, and reflection. Throughout the process, students wrestled with the questions “Who am I?” and “How can I represent what I have to offer on a mere piece of paper?” This unit was challenging but rewarding, for me and my students.

Initially, I was intimidated by teaching resumes, because unlike the Gatsby essay that would be turned in and graded by me, these resumes would be printed out and sent off into the “real world” someday. The thought of teaching students how to write and design a document that could end up on the desk…or in the paper shredder…of a hiring manager was a bit daunting. Although I was nervous, I was excited about empowering my students and teaching what I knew would be one of the most relevant and valuable units I’ve ever taught.

Thankfully, I was right. By the end of our resume writing unit, I was so proud of how much my students had grown as writers, future job candidates, and most importantly, human beings. If you’re hoping to implement the same kind of learning experience for your students, check out my resume writing unit, which contains editable versions of all of my mini-lessons and resources. Here’s everything I learned about how to structure a helpful resume writing unit for your students:

1. Expose the students to lots of resumes: the good, the bad, and the ugly

At first, I didn’t know how to start our resume writing unit. Jump in to the writing process and revise later? Start with a mini-lesson? Honestly, I was stressed out and doubting my ability to teach resumes. I hadn’t interviewed for a job or touched my resume in 5 years. I felt like I was in over my head. What did I know?

In an effort to begin my unit and lesson planning, I started researching resumes. I found myself searching examples and taking mental note of what I noticed. Then it hit me: That’s what my students needed to do! Like me, they would be overwhelmed with the daunting task of creating an appealing, modern resume. Suddenly, my lesson plan for the next day was simple: Find tons of examples: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let students sift through them and record their observations about what makes an effective resume–student-centered, inquiry-based learning!

I quickly rounded up sample resumes from Google, pulled up my old (and ugly) resume, and asked friends on Facebook to share their resumes. Within 20 minutes, I had a nice collection of over 20 resumes to share with my students. I printed off a few copies of each and arranged them on the counter in the back of my classroom.

Then, I created a worksheet where students simply recorded what they noticed about each resume. I gave them a few categories to focus on and asked them to critique each resume. I told students to pretend they were hiring managers going through stacks of resumes, deciding which candidates deserved an interview. After examining multiple resumes, students had to synthesize what they noticed about the most effective resumes. Finally, they reflected on what they already knew about resumes and what they wanted to learn and focus on throughout our mini unit.

This lesson was so simple, but so valuable. Some of them were harsh critics, which was great! Afterwards, I told them, “Gotcha! Now I have higher expectations because now you KNOW what to do! The only excuse is laziness!” If they critiqued the ugly fonts on the sample resumes…I could critic their font choice when I graded their final resumes with my rubrics. Mission accomplished!

2. Model the process with your own resume

After the results of the resume critique activity, I knew I needed to model the resume writing and design process by updating my own resume. My students were right. My resume was 2 pages long, filled with way too much text, and just plain ugly and uninspiring.

So before I began my mini-lessons on resume writing, I sat down to “teach myself” before I taught my students. I redesigned my entire resume, deleted irrelevant jobs, cut the fluff, and improved my word choice. This process gave me some confidence about teaching resumes for the first time, and it helped me realize what I should focus on during writing workshop with my students. During mini-lessons, I used my resume as an example. My students appreciated my transparency and learned a lot from my “before and after.”

Even though you might not need to update your resume, it’s a great exercise that will help you better understand the process and allow your students to see an “expert” model revision.

3. Scaffold the writing process with mini-lessons & a resume outline

When I revised and redesigned my own resume, I remembered how laborious it is to create an effective, visually-appealing resume. To make the resume writing process less daunting for my students, I broke up the different sections of the resume into different mini-lessons. I also created a resume outline on Google docs, and I required students to draft everything in the outline before they even touched a template. Students drafted and revised multiple times until I “approved” their working outline and allowed them to begin their final draft. This outline document scaffolded the structure and formatting of the resume, and it also helped me break down my mini-lessons. Here’s how I set up my mini-lessons during writing workshop:

• Writing a Professional Profile (If you’re new to the resume writing game, this is what has taken the place of the “Objective” section).
• Outlining Employment & Using Powerful Action Verbs
• Listing Skills & Using Strong Adjectives

I also incorporated peer feedback and teacher feedback activities in addition to the above mini-lessons.

4. Provide resources and support throughout the process

Since all of my students were creating resumes for different types of jobs, I knew I needed to offer even more scaffolding and support. A resume for an aspiring esthetician is going to look a lot different from a resume for an automotive technician! To support students and give them access to even more resources and examples, I created a hyperdoc of resources and links. Some of these resources were my own, but others were links from helpful websites that provided samples of resumes for different careers! If you want more information on creating your own hyperdocs for your students, check out this blog post.

Another way I provided support throughout the writing process was by checking in with every student, every day. On most days, I was able to walk around the room and physically check in with each student, but on days when I ended up helping a handful of students for a while, I didn’t make it to everyone. To make sure that I had a way of checking in on every student, no matter what, I had students submit an exit ticket at the end of each day. Each exit ticket was the same: “What did you accomplish today? What questions do you have and how can I help you?” I did this through Google Classroom’s “question” feature, so I was able to respond to students’ questions and see what everyone needed during the next day of writing workshop.

5. Incorporate multiple opportunities for peer feedback

Here’s the way I see peer feedback: The more you can train your students to provide feedback, the more efficient you can be with your teacher feedback. During our resume writing unit, I incorporated peer feedback in a variety of ways. First, I had students “turn and talk” to each other to give a “personal sales pitch” that would then become their professional profile at the top of their resume. Then, once they had drafted their profile and posted it on Google Classroom, I asked them to provide feedback to 3 of their peers. That way, once I looked at their professional profile drafts, their peers had already addressed a lot of what I would have commented, anyways! This allowed me to give my students more specific, focused feedback (and it saved me time, too).

The writing process can feel time-consuming, tedious, and boring for students. Mixing it up with opportunities for them to talk about their writing helps with engagement, too.

6. Emphasize the process of revision

It’s important to emphasize the process of revision and how it’s different from proofreading and editing. Some of them wanted to crank out their resumes, click “Turn in,” and then cheerfully shout, “I’m done!” when they hadn’t taken the time to genuinely revise. Other students argued that their resumes were “good enough” because they had successfully used them when applying for their current jobs. It was difficult to convince some students to invest time in the revision and editing.

But I’ll let you in on a little secret: Some of the students who struggled or complained the most were the very same ones who thanked me later in their learning reflections. Here’s what one student said: “The resume unit was the most helpful because I was too lazy to write one on my own. Miss G, you’re killing it.” At least they’re honest.

By structuring the resume-writing process with step-by-step lessons, modeling my own revision, and incorporating lots of peer and teacher feedback and subsequent revision, I forced my students to revise. I demonstrated the value of revision and purposefully integrated revision in my mini-lessons. I even included a category titled “Evidence of Revision” on my final rubric, and I asked students to explicitly tell me (through Google docs comments) what they revised and why. The end result? Better resumes, but more importantly, better writers who finally valued the process of revision.

7. Provide templates to help your students create a visually appealing, modern resume

It’s easy to let your students create the standard text-on-a-page resume, but it’s 2019, and those resumes are ancient! There are tons of options and templates available online, but my favorite resource for visually appealing resumes is Canva, a online graphic-design tool with many free templates. You can also search on Pinterest for more inspiration!

I designed two of my own templates and provided them to students, but I also linked up a few templates I found online. Most of my students used my templates or the ones from Canva, but I did have a few students who used other sources. I would recommend assessing how much structure your students need and then recommending different templates and/or websites. For example, for my ELL students, my pre-made template was especially helpful. I didn’t want them to be overwhelmed by the process of creatively designing a resume, because the process of writing was already challenging enough. Meet your students where they are, but use templates to help them create a visually appealing resume!

8. Make it meaningful & “publish” students’ final resumes!

English teachers know that one of the most important but often ignored parts of the writing process is the final phase: Publishing! When your students are finished, print their resumes out and celebrate their hard work in an authentic way. Here are a few ideas:

• Facilitate a “gallery walk” or “exhibit hall” where students “network” with their peers, exchange resumes, and discuss their experiences and skills.
• Facilitate mock interviews where students must discuss their resume and answer other common interview questions. (We did this & it was a hit with students!)
• Send off the resumes to administration or an hiring manager (if you can find one) and ask them to provide realistic feedback.
• Encourage students to use their new resumes to apply for a job, and then celebrate when they are successful!

I was so proud of my students’ final resumes and how much they grew during the writing process. The unit was not without its challenges, but it was so rewarding to end it with physical proof that students were one step closer to being “college and career ready.” If you’re interested in preparing your students for life after graduation, check out my Career Readiness Growing Bundle, which currently contains a career research project and this resume writing unit. (Cover letters and mock interviews are coming soon.)

Do you teach resume writing to your students? If so, what grade level and class? What other ideas or tips do you have? I would love to hear more in the comments!

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Thanks for the great resources. I plan on beginning my employment package assignment in April and this will come in handy. However, there is something that I want to point out. As a business professor who teaches business classes and resume writing, I would suggest telling your students that creative and fun resumes are only appropriate in that type of field such as graphic designs, creative writing, art, etc. In fields such as marketing, medicine, engineering, management, etc., creative resumes with various designs is a no-no. Granted these are high school students, but what we teach them now as a foundation on what they need to know should be practical for future referencing. Yes, the resume is a boring looking document, but how you teach it can be the creative and exciting part!

I will definitely be using these resources this year. Thank you for all you do.

Hi there, Thanks for your feedback. I do teach them about that. However, even the “boring” resumes look more professional with some fonts/lines/boxes/formatting/etc.

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On the job hunt (writing a CV)

• Looking for a Job
• Writing Skills

Writing a CV

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson, students watch a video about writing a CV in English, have a closer look at a CV sample and write parts of their CVs .  

VIDEO AND DISCUSSION

The lesson starts with a warm-up in which students talk about writing a CV. They decide whether certain elements should be included in CVs (e.g. your photo, your date of birth, your hobbies). There are no incorrect answers in this task but students need to explain why they would include some elements and not others. Then, students do a vocabulary task . They need to match five statements with their follow-ups. The context for the target vocabulary ( template, bullet points, chronological order , etc.) is provided. If the teacher thinks it’s necessary, they might ask students to explain the target vocabulary after they have finished the task. Next, students discuss some questions about writing a CV in English and other languages. They also share their experience with online CV writing tips.

WRITING A CV IN ENGLISH

Students watch the first part of the video and match three types of CVs with their descriptions. While they watch the second part of the video, they decide whether five sentences are true or false . They also need to correct the false sentences . After the video, students answer some questions about writing a CV in English using the information they’ve learned from the video. Next, students read a CV and answer some questions about it. They decide whether the author followed the rules from the video and talk about the skills listed in the CV. Then, students read the CV objective again and complete some notes about it. Their next task is to complete some notes about themselves and write a CV objective . Finally, students look at the work experience described in the CV and use the verbs included there to create some collocations . They also decide which of the verbs they will use while writing a CV in English. In the last task, students need to use the verbs to write about their work experience . As homework, students can use the parts of CV they wrote in the class to create their own complete CV in English .

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Another practical and great lesson plan for professional contexts! As an ESL teacher, we are encouraged to assist our non-native speaker students to do something actionable in their professional life. Thanks for the plan. Happy New Year!

I’m glad to hear the lesson is useful. Happy New Year to you, too 🙂

Really useful!

Great! Thanks!

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Help Wanted: Writing Professional Resumes

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

In this series of seven class sessions, students will work through the process of creating a professional resume. With a special emphasis on helping students learn about resumes as professional documents, this lesson will discuss why writers create resumes, why they must consider the rhetorical situation of the resume, and why both content and presentation are so important in this type of writing. Students will analyze and critique existing resumes, create their own resume and tailor it to a real job posting, peer review resumes for content and presentation, and then present their resumes as professional documents to the class.

Featured Resources

ReadWriteThink NoteTaker : Students can use this online tool to take notes and organize them into an outline format.

From Theory to Practice

Creating a resume is one of the first steps students take to prepare them for their future roles as professionals who know how to communicate in multiple contexts. The process of creating a resume asks students to begin envisioning themselves as professionals and calls upon them to understand a new audience for their writing: employers and other business professionals (see Dean 55-61). In her book Genre Theory: Teaching, Writing, Being , NCTE author and consultant Deborah Dean notes the need for educators to help students "understand the need to adapt writing to situations," and the complex tasks involved in responding to a job posting with a professional resume provide such a teaching and learning opportunity (5). As they learn about the dimensions of resumes, including their purpose, format, and language, students gain greater insight into the social dimensions of writing and have the opportunity to explore the "implications of choosing to follow or resist the expectations associated with [various] situations" (7). Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
• 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• 9. Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles.
• 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• Suggested Online Student Resume Resources
• Resume Writing Resources  
• Resume Action Words  
• Resume Peer Review Guide  
• Using ReadWriteThink Notetaker to Draft Resumes  
• Analyzing Your Writing Process Assignment  
• Professional Resume Rubric

Preparation

• Collect resumes and resume resources for students to explore and critique. (See Resources section .) Collect both effective and ineffective examples and prepare several to be shown on an overhead, LCD projector, or document camera.  
• Collect back issues of classified ads/job postings prior to Session Four to ensure that all students have a job listing from which to work.  
• Make sure students have access to computer labs for Sessions One through Six .  
• Bookmark the Suggested Online Student Resume Resources .  
• Prepare copies of all handouts for distribution in class.  
• Test the Venn Diagram tool and the ReadWriteThink NoteTaker on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tools.  
• Bookmark the ReadWriteThink NoteTaker for student use in Session Three .

Student Objectives

Students will

• analyze professional resumes to learn what makes them effective or ineffective for an audience.  
• analyze and describe the audience for a resume, noting its purpose and how the audience responds to the document.  
• create a professional resume of their own using document and audience analysis, drafting, peer response, and revision.  
• reflect on their writing process, noting how this assignment will be useful to them in their future writing responsibilities.

Session One

• Ask students to engage in a Think-Pair-Share activity by spending five minutes freewriting about resumes. They may write about their experiences with resumes and their perceptions of resumes, including resumes they have written, friends'/family members' resumes they have seen, what they know about them, why they are important, how they look, and what they say about the writer.  
• Ask students to get into small groups to share their freewriting. Select a recorder for each group to take notes about what the group discusses to share with the whole class.  
• Bring students together as a class and ask them to share each group's notes about resumes. The teacher or a class volunteer should make a list on the overhead or board for use later in the lesson process, especially as students are writing their reflective essays in Session Six .  
• Project for students two or three sample effective resumes. Discuss the main parts of each. Explain that while each resume meets generally accepted criteria that suggest it is "effective," the effectiveness of any resume is situated within the context of the job posting and the demands of the given job or career. You will discuss this issue in more detail in sessions to come.  
• Why do we need resumes?  
• Do all jobs require a resume?  
• Why do some jobs ask for a resume and others do not?  
• What does a resume say about a person?
• Ask students to shift to their own search for guidance on resume writing by looking at available resources on the Internet. Direct students to the Suggested Online Student Resume Resources and give each student a copy of the Resume Writing Resources handout and go over its requirements. Students should review each site or resource by taking note of the kinds of help offered for beginning resume writers and keeping track of specific information they think will be important as they create their own resumes.  
• For the next session, ask each student to find one additional resume help resource and bring it to class. Students should add this resource to their Resume Writing Resources handout. They may find this by going online to a search engine such as Google or Ask.com , by going to a career center and getting a pamphlet or booklet, or by going to a library and finding a book or article on resume writing.

Session Two

• Build from the work of the previous session by showing students a few more effective sample resumes as well as some samples that are clearly problematic. Lead a brief discussion about the strengths and weaknesses students perceive in the various samples.  
• Elicit from students the basic required sections of a resume: Objective, Education, and Work Experience. Ask students to brainstorm other sections that may also be important to include on a resume (Volunteer Experience, Special Skills, Awards Received, Certifications or Licenses, Involvement in Clubs or Societies, etc.).  
• Ask students to consider the extent to which having the expected headings and format is enough to make a resume effective. While projecting an accepted "effective" resume, have half of the students quickwrite a job listing for which the resume is well-suited; the other half should compose a job listing for which the resume is ill-suited.  
• Have students share these divergent job descriptions and facilitate a brief discussion on the central importance of the job listing in assessing a resume's overall effectiveness.  
• Inform students that they will now be forming professional writing groups of three or four students. Tell students they will work with these groups for the duration of the lesson, serving as professional reviewers and helping each other with writing and reviewing their resumes. (Teachers may choose to divide students into groups based on their career interests.)  
• Ask students to go to their groups and, with reference to the sample resumes from this session and last, produce a list what makes a resume different from other types of writing they have seen or used in the past. Ask them to consider abstract issues such as audience and purpose as well as concrete issues such as content and form.  
• Ask students to share their lists with the class. Discuss how resumes are a genre of writing known as professional writing. Make a list on the board or overhead listing the differences between professional writing (including resumes) and other types of writing. You may wish to use the Venn Diagram tool to facilitate this process. Share with students that these are elements they will need to know when creating their own resumes.  
• Now ask students to get out their new resume help resources and Resume Writing Resources handout they were assigned to bring. Ask them to compare their resources, noting what each source says that is similar to or different from the other sources. Ask groups to create a list of their own resume-writing tips and share these with the class.  
• Collect the Resume Writing Resources handout and tell students that for Session Four , they need to search newspapers, local career sites, Monster.com , or Careerbuilder.com for job listings that interest them. They need to bring three potential job listings to class with them for the that session.

Session Three

• Inform students that during this session they will begin drafting the outline of their own professional resume. While the specifics of the resume will be tailored to the job posting (see Session Four), students will create the basis for the more specific resume in this session.  
• Remind students of the typical sections of a resume from the previous session and share with them the importance of descriptive action words in these sections of a resume. Give them the Resume Action Words handout and ask them to add to it as they review various resume resources.
• Use the  Resume Action Words handout as a segue to the overall requirements for the resume assignment. Distribute the sample Professional Resume Rubric and discuss the requirements for a strong resume. For now, focus on the elements that the group has already discussed, but assure students that other elements will be covered in the rest of the process.  
• Direct students to the ReadWriteThink NoteTaker where they can begin typing the sections of their resume, including bulleted lists of the tasks/actions they did while in the jobs they have had. Show students the Using ReadWriteThink Notetaker to Draft Resumes handout and ask them to refer to their  Resume Action Words handout as they draft. Stress to students that they cannot save their work in this interactive tool.  
• Using ReadWriteThink NoteTaker , they should include all major section headers and then list information within these. Emphasize to students that the resumes they create may have fewer items in the Work Experience section at this time because they are new to the job search. Instead of focusing on what experience they do not yet have, students should try to think about all the special skills or volunteer experiences they have had and include those.  
• At the end of class, have students print their progress so far, as work cannot be saved with the ReadWriteThink NoteTaker .  
• Students should continue drafting their resume sections at home, adding notes to the printout from the ReadWriteThink NoteTaker .  
• Remind students that for the next session, they need to search newspapers, local career sites, Monster.com , or Careerbuilder.com for job listings that interest them. They need to bring three potential job listings to class with them for the next session.

Session Four

• Ask students to get into their professional writing groups and share the job postings they brought to class. Have back issues of job listings on hand for students who do not come prepared; forgetful students can also engage through the additional listings group members brought.  
• Students should describe their posting and share why they chose those job listings, what qualifications the jobs require, and for which they are most qualified at this time.  
• Remind students of the importance of the job posting by referring to the activity from Session Two. Project a sample job listing that might appeal to the students in your classroom. Walk students through the parts of the posting, including the ways in which it describes the company or organization, the position, and the qualifications a person needs to have.  
• Share with students the importance of addressing these items in their resumes as much as possible and provide examples of how students can do this based on the sample job listing you post.  
• Remind students about the importance of audience in writing a resume and that the job posting essentially tells the writer what the audience/potential employer wants to see in the resume. Their task is to match their experiences to the listing, using language precisely and honestly.  
• Place students back into their professional writing groups and ask them to review their job postings carefully, highlighting information that will be important for them to include. Ask students to find and highlight key words and ideas that their job postings state are important (for example, themes such as good communication skills, working as a team, good organization skills, etc.).  
• At this point, ask students to choose the job posting that is best suited to their current experiences and most closely matches their interests and goals.  
• Students should return to the printed resume drafts they created using ReadWriteThink NoteTaker and look for ways to blend the employer-desired skills with their own experiences. Encourage them to add action words and specific phrasing from the job posting and/or to include a section on special skills or activities they have that reflect what the employer wants. This will help them tailor their resumes to that audience. (Students may need additional help from the instructor in order to see how their experiences can be made to accommodate an employer's wording.)  
• For the next session, students should have all major sections of their resume completed (including bulleted action items) using the draft from ReadWriteThink NoteTaker . They should bring them to class along with their printed job description.

Session Five

• Students should get out their printed sections of their resume and bulleted action lists as created in ReadWriteThink NoteTaker . In their professional writing groups, students will exchange their resume draft notes and their job posting with the others. Students will review each group member's resume draft notes, asking questions that will help their classmate revise. Use the Resume Peer Review Guide to facilitate this process.  
• Give students time on the computers to work with their resume notes in a word processing program such as Microsoft Word. Students may choose to use a resume template available on Word, or they may choose to create their own format for their resumes. Teachers may need to spend time showing students how to use templates or help them create a resume format without a template.  
• As students revise and organize this draft of their resumes, the teacher should move around the room, conferring with them individually about the changes they are making and asking them to describe how their resume is tailored to their professional audience.  
• For the next session, students should complete typing their resumes and bring a printed copy to class for a visual analysis day.

Session Six

• Begin the class by asking students to freewrite for five minutes, reflecting on their experience so far drafting their resumes, finding a job posting, and tailoring their resume to that job.  
• Following that, ask them to find a partner who is not from their professional writing group and share with that student the experiences they wrote about. Each student should ask their partner at least two questions about their experiences. Students should write these questions down on their freewriting note pages and then respond to them in writing. These notes will be used by students when they draft their Analyzing Your Writing Process Assignment to accompany their final resume.  
• Bring the class back together and begin a discussion about the visual design aspect of resumes. Reconnect with students' earlier comments about how resumes are different from other types of writing. It may be helpful to refer to the list students made in Session One .  
• Discuss the importance of the visual layout of resumes and how the look of a resume works in conjunction with its purpose, to provide employers a quick impression of the author and his/her ability to perform the duties and succeed in the job. Also discuss how students can make their own resumes stand out while still working within traditional resume format guidelines.  
• Ask students to return to various resume resources, including books, articles, or online sites and find two additional resume writing sites and gather ideas about the visual presentation of resumes. Refer them to the Suggested Online Student Resume Resources if necessary. After reviewing this information, students should return to their professional writing groups with at least three ideas for how to design the layout of their own resumes.  
• Bring the class back together and ask students to share what they learned about the visual design of resumes. Ask other students to act as recorders for the class.  
• Give students time to return to the computers and work on the design of their resumes using what they learned from the class discussion.  
• At the end of the session, introduce the Analyzing Your Writing Process Assignment , telling students that in addition to submitting their finished professional resumes and job postings, they will also write a reflective essay documenting their writing process and explain what they learned about creating a professional resume . See the Analyzing Your Writing Process Assignment . This assignment should be completed after the presentation.  
• For the next session, students should bring their completed resumes to class.

Session Seven

• Students should take out their finished resumes. Allow students about 5 minutes to review their resume so that the information is fresh in their minds for their presentation to the class.  
• Each student will come to the front of the class and share his/her resume, describing his/her process for creating it, what job it is tailored for and how it is tailored for that job, what he/she likes about the resume, and how he/she might continue to revise it. (The student should be able to show the resume to the class using a computer [for an electronic version], a document camera [paper version], or an overhead projector [transparency version]. If only an overhead is available, the teacher may need to allow extra time for preparing resumes as overheads to show the class.)  
• Following each student's presentation, the class will be allowed time to ask the presenter any questions and present their suggestions for revision. The number of days devoted to presentations will depend on the size of the class.  
• Remind students to complete the Analyzing Your Writing Process Assignment for submission at the next class meeting.
• This lesson can be extended and enhanced by inviting local business owners or human resource representatives to the classroom to discuss their experiences in writing job listings and reading/reviewing resumes.
• Partner with other teachers or departments in your school and arrange a job fair in your gymnasium or auditorium. Invite local businesses to send representatives to serve as resume reviewers and mock interviewers.
• This lesson can be extended to include more time spent on resume design, including designing scannable resumes.
• Some entry-level jobs require the completion of an application but not the submission of a resume. Acquire applications for jobs in your area and share these with students, noting how having their resume makes for easy completion of most applications. Further stress how the resume writing process prepares students for interviews by getting them to think about their experiences, skills, and strengths.  
• Students can visit these Web resources to learn more about writing a resume: Writing Your First Resume , General Technical Writing Guidelines , Monster.com Student Resume Tips , and Resumes—What Not to Do .

Student Assessment / Reflections

• Make sure that students are making adequate progress on the project by checking work completed at the end of each session and offering additional guidance or support when necessary.
• Use the sample Professional Resume Rubric to assess finished resumes and reflections.
• Calendar Activities
• Professional Library
• Student Interactives

Students examine the different ways that they write and think about the role writing plays in life.

Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to five levels of information.

This tool guides students through the creation of a resume that can be saved and edited. Written and audio tips provide extra support.

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Lesson Plan: Show Yourself Off - Write a Resume

Description.

In this lesson, students will create personal resumes to use when searching for a job.

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