Q: I have always used Appleworks Drawing for making the frames and grid for my lesson plans. Any suggestions of what to use now?

This depends on whether you need to open previously created AppleWorks documents. The only programs which can do this are EazyDraw (right) and Intaglio (though when I tested the demo it wouldn't open complex drawings such as the one below). If you are dealing with complex technical drawings EazyDraw is probably the best choice: it's about the same cost as the whole of iWork (when downloaded, and rather more expensive on a CD), but cheaper than some other vector based programs, and seems to handle the whole process well - though it does operate somewhat differently from AppleWorks. There is a much cheaper version available on the Mac App Store, but note that it does not open AppleWorks Draw Documents: neither does the latest version from their website (4.1.x) - for this you need 4.0.x 'Retro', also available from the website.

If you are only concerned with making new documents, then you can do a certain amount in Pages: but a better bet might be Swift Publisher 2, which is a layout program with a library of clip-art. I use it in preference to Pages for layout, though not for word processing - it isn't really designed for that.

EasyDraw is also a powerful drawing program: if you're not concerned with opening old AppleWorks documents the version from the Mac App Store is the one to go for.