I absolutely believe that getting students engaged before actually beginning a text can the making or breaking point in a student’s understanding or interest in a text. Beers provides several great activities to use before beginning a text to engage them in the text prior to reading. I love the idea of an anticipation guide. This activity really seemed to get the students in Mr. Davidson’s class engaged and wanting to read the story. They struggled through the questions, so when it was time to discuss, each student had something to contribute to the conversation. The students were struggling to answer the questions on the anticipation guide for Anne Frank not because they were too difficult, but because they were decision-making questions. Not knowing what the correct answer was really made the students excited to talk about the questions and furthermore jump into the text that related to this anticipation guide. I see this as a wonderful tool to get students engaged prior to reading a text.
I am very familiar with a K-W-L chart and see it as simple and easy tool to use not only to activate students prior knowledge about a topic, but also as an assessment. I think this could work as an individual assignment or as a small group task. Sometimes you need to engage in a small discussion to get your prior knowledge activated. I think it is important to also think about what you want to learn. Often times, I never sit down and think what I really want to gain from a particular reading. If I did that, I may be more apt to pick up on things in the text that are important bits of information. Finally, writing down what you learned will help you see how much you can gain from a text. It can also serve as a great point of reference for future needs or can be used by a teacher as an assessment for students.
All of the activities in this chapter are great and are ones that I will come back to in my future career to help students become engaged prior to reading. I see many benefits from each and every activity described in this chapter, but really enjoyed the anticipation guide and the K-W-L chart.
I agree about the anticipation guides. I had never heard of them before reading this chapter, but I think they are a great idea. I liked how the students struggled with answering the questions. That means they are thinking. Some of those questions can really bother you, because you don't know what is right. Starting off a book with this uncertainty of your own opinion wonderful in my opinion. Students will be more likely to see these themes in the book as they read and get more out of them.
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