Monday, November 24, 2008

Anticipation Guides

Anticipation Guides (Tierney & Readance, 1999) activate a student’s prior knowledge and also set a purpose for reading and/or viewing. Both of these things are critical for readers to do. Anticipation Guides work best if the reading/film contains controversial issues, problems, or opinions that don’t have an easy answer or solution. Note: This activity does take a little prep time to prepare the series of statements.
So here's how it works:
Students are given a series of these controversial statements, and—before reading or discussing—are asked to agree or disagree (or agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, disagree strongly). These statements can be used as some discussion starters after students complete the “guide.”
Once the reading has started (or is completed), students should revisit their marks of agreement/disagreement and make changes, if necessary. These before/after results and the reasons for changes can be the focus of discussions.

Below are a few of the statements I used in an Anticipation Guide for the Greek tragedy Antigone, but Anticipation Guides can be written for both fiction and nonfiction (in fact, they work well for science and social studies readings).
Some are thematic ideas from the play that I worked into antithetical statements. These were ideas that I knew we would be discussing later, as the students read the play, worked on some improvisations and group activities, and did some independent writing:
1. Nothing is worth dying for.
2. Youth should submit to elders; inexperience should submit to experience.
3. No one is above the law.
4. Let your conscience be your guide.
5. There is no happiness where there is no wisdom.

If you have any questions or comments about this or any of the ideas, please leave a comment on the blog.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Sticky Notes

One easy activity to encourage students to make inferences or just to note their thinking is to use sticky notes.
There are lots of different ways to have students use sticky notes as they read.
Here's one:
1.  Give students very small sticky notes before they read.
2.  If you are studying a specific concept (like greed, ambition, lust for power, foils, metaphors, causes of a specific event, characteristics of some concept, etc.), ask students to write some code words, pictures, labels, etc. on the sticky notes to represent the concepts.
3.  Then, as they read, the students use the sticky notes to post in the text when they note an example of the concept or whatever you want them to notice and think about as they read.

This concept can also be used for students to note places where they agree with the author (a check on the note), where they disagree (a minus), when they don't get it (a question mark), etc. The class can decide on the symbols.

As a warm-up for the following day, students can share with a partner some of their "comments."

Monday, November 10, 2008

Squares, Triangles, and Circles

Another easy idea to encourage student thinking about a text is the Squares, Triangle, and Circles strategy. As students read, listen to a lecture, or view a film, they should look for important ideas from the text/discussion/film and continually think of questions those ideas engender. This mnemonic is one way:
Students would write down notes for—
Four ideas that square with my thinking (Square)
Three important angles (points, ideas) from the text/discussion (Triangle)
One question that keeps going around in my head (Circle)
You could design an graphic organizer if you like, or just tell them Squares, Triangles, and Circles, and the students just jot down the 4, 3 and 1 thoughts.