To teach a history unit successfully, you MUST be intellectually prepared for every lesson. It’s crucial that you have a deep understanding of the historical content. You must internalize the unit’s big ideas as well as study every lesson and read each document to determine how each lesson drives toward mastery of these big ideas. Furthermore, you must plan exemplar responses — and be prepared for possible misconceptions — for every question. If you are not intellectually prepared for a lesson, you cannot guide your scholars to mastery or hold your scholars accountable.