**Edited to add documents for Aaronic Priesthood and Sunday School programs, in addition to Young Women. There are three links to the three documents at the bottom of this page.
Recently, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints updated the learning curriculum for the Sunday School, Young Men, and Young Women programs. Instead of having a prepared manual with step-by-step lessons that are taught in order, each month of the year has a specific topic, and "learning outlines" are provided on that topic. There are more learning outlines than there are weeks in a month, so it is up to the leaders and the youth in each unit to decide which outlines will be most beneficial and instructive for them, individually. The learning outlines are much more flexible and discussion-driven than the old manual lessons.
I am one of the Young Women leaders in my ward (congregation, for any non-Mormons who are still reading this post :)). I decided it would be helpful to create a document to facilitate the discussion between youth and adult leaders about which learning outlines should be used for each week's lesson. I wanted to share it for any other YW leaders who are interested in using it.
The document I have embedded in this post has one page for each month, with each page having two copies of the "poll" I created for that month's lessons, and I'll just make enough copies for all my YW. In the middle, I have listed the titles (I love that they are all questions!) of the learning outlines for the month. On the left, I ask that the YW rank to outlines in order of how interested they are in learning about the answer to that specific question. On the right, I have asked that they indicated if they would be willing to help teach all or part of each lesson. Obviously, if they don't feel comfortable at all, they can just leave that space blank. :)
(I doubt that most of them will be comfortable teaching at all in the beginning, but I hope that as the year progresses and they become more comfortable with how the program works, they will be more willing to step out of their comfort zones and teach. I know that I will never forget when Sister Z, my Beehive Advisor, let me teach the lesson one week! It was quite the learning experience for me and has informed my approach to teaching ever since. I'm sure I was a horrible teacher at age 12, but I am so appreciative of her willingness to let me try. Now, until the young women are ready to teach, whenever I teach the lesson, I give each YW an assignment of something to think about and share in class. I might share a scripture or quotation and ask her to take a few minutes to answer a question I ask about it, or I might ask her to share a personal experience she has had with one of the principles we are discussing. As the YW adjust to the new system and are willing to teach, we as leaders will be able to mentor them in their preparations. The possibilities and opportunities for the girls make me very excited!)
Finally, at the bottom, I ask if the YW have any of their own questions about the topic for the month, or about anything Gospel- or Church-related. They are invited to list those questions on the back of the page.
Toward the end of each month, I will print off copies of the next month's topics and take them to class and activities for the YW to fill out. I will be taking the poll for February to church tomorrow (the last week of January) and to our activity on Wednesday night. Once the YW have all filled it out, we will have a better idea of where to focus our teaching for the month of February.
Feel free to share this document with anyone you think might be able to use it!
Below are three links, one each for the YW, AP, and SS programs. Each document contains the correct learning outline options for each of the different programs.
Young Women
Aaronic Priesthood
Youth Sunday School
