A lesson that I have seen taught many times by different teachers, but is always effective, is one that is taught during 1st grade writing. Within the “How To” unit, students are expected to write books on “how to” do something that they know how to do. The students are expected to be very specific with their instructions so that the reader understands exactly how to do what they wrote about. The anticipatory set that I have seen to demonstrate this skill is as follows: The teacher will be asking the students, “How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” The teacher asks the students what steps they would tell their reader, acting out each step as the students say it. This demonstration often gets silly and messy as the students are either being too vague with their instructions or skipping important steps. This is a fun and engaging way to preface the lesson. The students were actively engaged and had to be really careful and reconsider what they were telling their teacher to do. This was a very visual representation of what the expectation was that they could come back to when writing their own books.
