Purpose
Anticipation Guides are used to help give students a purpose for reading. In doing this, teachers can help students become more engaged in the text before they even begin reading. These guides aim to grab student attention and begin to think critically about a given topic or topics before encountering the text itself.
Procedures
Students should be presented with a teacher-created guide that contains relatively short statements designed to grab the attention of students. Typically these statements will be based in opinion, centering on a particular topic. Students will need to decide whether or not they agree with the individual listed statement and be able to provide reasoning for their responses. They would then pair with another student to share their responses. After this time, the class would then reconvene as a large group; volunteers would be asked to share their responses and reasoning to the class at large. The Anticipation Guide is usually carried through the reading and paired with a Reaction Guide following the reading (see post-reading strategies for further information on Reaction Guides).
Example
The links below contain an example Anticipation Guide that could be used prior to students reading the George Orwell novel 1984. The statements provided refer to major themes found in the novel and center on topics that students may find controversial and easily debatable.
1984_anticipation_guide.doc | |
File Size: | 28 kb |
File Type: | doc |
1984_anticipation_guide.rtf | |
File Size: | 42 kb |
File Type: | rtf |
References:Central High School, 2012; D'Arcangelo, 2002a