Anticipatory Sets
Great refresher on the importance of anticipatory sets. The article was good because it gave different reasons to use an anticipatory set, whether you are introducing new material/content/skills or you are review/reteaching. It was also good to watch the video as he spoke about good examples so the video would be really good for a new teacher to watch. I am sure they have done anticipatory sets as an assignment in an Ed course while in college, but I do think that many of the assignments that are done in Ed courses feel so isolated from an actual classroom setting.
A lesson I remember in which I think I had a good anticipatory set was when I put up the picture of the Napalm girl from the Vietnam War in 1972. In my US history class, we were studying the 60’s and 70’s and we spent a little bit of time learning about the Vietnam War as part of the larger Cold War. Students were familiar with vocab such as guerilla warfare as well as chemical warfare and total war. We also had already covered the reasons that the US was involved in the Vietnam War as well as the concept of the domino effect connected to the Cold War.
As students came in the room, the picture was up on the board. I had a half sheet of paper for them that asked them to document what they saw in the photo, what they thought was going on in the photo, and 2 questions that they had about the photo. There was definitely a hush in the room as students studied the photo. A couple kids giggled a little but I actually expected that as sometimes things that are overwhelming cause an inappropriate emotional response. Overall, I thought the anticipatory set was good because students really spent some time looking closely at the photo and then thinking about what they saw. Many had questions about the little girl who was naked and crying, such as whether she died. Also, there were questions about why the soldiers in the photo appear to be doing nothing to help the children. After giving some background about the photo and discussing the prompts from their sheets, we talked about the very idea of war and total war and civilians in war. I distinctly remember a student saying he isn’t sure if there is a valid reason for war when you look at a photo like that and think about the impact of that one incident on those children. Someone else suggested that perhaps it might have been better for those kids if they had just died so that they didn’t have to live with those memories. It was a heavy lesson, but the discussion was good and I felt like students had a much greater appreciation of decisions that are made and that there are very few good and bad decisions, but instead of decisions that are made based on the pros and cons of a time and situation. Perhaps the only thing I might change is giving the students a heads up regarding the nudity in the photo ahead of showing it on the board.
Great refresher on the importance of anticipatory sets. The article was good because it gave different reasons to use an anticipatory set, whether you are introducing new material/content/skills or you are review/reteaching. It was also good to watch the video as he spoke about good examples so the video would be really good for a new teacher to watch. I am sure they have done anticipatory sets as an assignment in an Ed course while in college, but I do think that many of the assignments that are done in Ed courses feel so isolated from an actual classroom setting.
A lesson I remember in which I think I had a good anticipatory set was when I put up the picture of the Napalm girl from the Vietnam War in 1972. In my US history class, we were studying the 60’s and 70’s and we spent a little bit of time learning about the Vietnam War as part of the larger Cold War. Students were familiar with vocab such as guerilla warfare as well as chemical warfare and total war. We also had already covered the reasons that the US was involved in the Vietnam War as well as the concept of the domino effect connected to the Cold War.
As students came in the room, the picture was up on the board. I had a half sheet of paper for them that asked them to document what they saw in the photo, what they thought was going on in the photo, and 2 questions that they had about the photo. There was definitely a hush in the room as students studied the photo. A couple kids giggled a little but I actually expected that as sometimes things that are overwhelming cause an inappropriate emotional response. Overall, I thought the anticipatory set was good because students really spent some time looking closely at the photo and then thinking about what they saw. Many had questions about the little girl who was naked and crying, such as whether she died. Also, there were questions about why the soldiers in the photo appear to be doing nothing to help the children. After giving some background about the photo and discussing the prompts from their sheets, we talked about the very idea of war and total war and civilians in war. I distinctly remember a student saying he isn’t sure if there is a valid reason for war when you look at a photo like that and think about the impact of that one incident on those children. Someone else suggested that perhaps it might have been better for those kids if they had just died so that they didn’t have to live with those memories. It was a heavy lesson, but the discussion was good and I felt like students had a much greater appreciation of decisions that are made and that there are very few good and bad decisions, but instead of decisions that are made based on the pros and cons of a time and situation. Perhaps the only thing I might change is giving the students a heads up regarding the nudity in the photo ahead of showing it on the board.