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Getting Their Attention:
Frontloading Activities
EDC 448
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Objectives
 Reflect
and discuss with your colleagues the use of
materials and instructional techniques designed to
capture students’ attention and address
prerequisite knowledge needs at the beginning of
your lesson
 Buehl Frontloading Ch. 2
 Connect Two, Anticipation Guides, K-W-L Plus
 Picture Books in Your Content Area
 Explore
and share examples of how interactive
websites may help activate, assess, and/or build
pre-requisite knowledge
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Connect Two
FRONTLOAD
USE AN ENTRANCE TICKET
ACTIVATE
BACKGROUND
KNOWLEDGE
READ PART OF A PICTURE
BOOK ALOUD IN CLASS
BUILD
BACKGROUND
KNOWLEDGE
BUILD INTENTIONAL
CONNECTIONS BTW. PERSONAL
LIVES & CONCEPTS
ASSESS
BACKGROUND
KNOWLEDGE
BRAINSTORM CONNECTIONS
IN A SMALL GROUP & SHARE
+ Activating/Assessing/Building
Background Knowledge
 Using Picture
Books with Adolescents (pros/cons)
 Connect Two:
Connect pairs of words from easy & hard
column to create a sentence (Possible sentences: use
words to write possible sentences, then verify T/F or
IDK)
 First Impressions: Brainstorm connections to chain of
clues; ** revisit to confirm or revise to make accurate!
 K-W-L
Plus: “plus” > group what you learned to
summarize
+ K-W-N-S for Math
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Seminar Part 1:
Getting Their Attention
1. Prior knowledge plays a large role in reading comprehension
and content area learning.
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How will you determine how much knowledge your students
bring to your lesson?
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How will you explicitly activate that knowledge to help students
connect it to new information?
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What will you do if/when you realize students have little to no
“assumed knowledge” of the content in your lesson?
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Please share your reactions, questions, ideas, and concerns about
how these activities and materials may or may not make complex
texts and challenging content more accessible to all students.
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See Yourself in
Pictures:
What would be going
through your mind?
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BASEBALL SAVED US - p. 1
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One day, my dad looked out at the endless desert and decided
then and there to build a baseball field. He said people needed
something to do in Camp. We weren’t in a camp that was fun, like
summer camp. Ours was in the middle of nowhere, and we were
behind a barbed-wire fence. Soldiers with guns made sure we
stayed there, and the man in the tower saw everything we did, no
matter where we were.
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As Dad began walking over the dry, cracked dirt, I asked him
again why we were here.
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“Because,” he said, “American is at war with Japan, and the
government thinks that Japanese Americans can’t be trusted. But
it’s wrong that we’re in here. We’re Americans too!” Then he
made a mark in the dirt and mumbled something about where
the infield bases should be.
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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?…. (Author’s Words…My Impressions)
Life Interrupted
FDR Speech
A More Perfect Union
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Using Picture Books as a
Frontloading Activity
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Baseball Saved Us
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Objective: Students will write three paragraphs detailing the
experiences of Japanese-American citizens held against their will
in internment camps during WW2 and discuss the impact of these
experiences on these individual’s lives
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Activate: Use with anticipation guide – prompt discussion;
connect to self and peers; revisit/revise as move through story
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Build: Use with Story Impressions activity (author’s
words/pictures; your impressions) as move through the story
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Assess: Use with anticipation guide (and details) AFTER reading
to inform my instruction – are they ready to connect to higher
level material about this topic?
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Seminar Part 2:
Technology Smackdown
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SEMINAR PART 2: Technology Smackdown with Interactive
Websites at
http://edc448uri.wikispaces.com/interactivewebsites
 Please
share an online resource you explored and
explain how it can be useful to (a) activate; (b)
assess; and/or (c) build students' pre-requisite
knowledge for a lesson/unit BEFORE you teach.
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Feedback for Argumentation Paper
 32
points (2) A
 29-30
 23
points (2) A-
points (2) C
 18-12
points (5)
 Argumentation
Rubric – reading/research;
development; organization, language/conventions
 Feedback
for Revisions
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Parts of a quality argument
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Homework
READ (2 short and 1 long) and Complete
Reading/Synthesis Guide (TYPE AND PRINT)
 Lawrence, White, &
Snow (2010) The Words
Students Need (short website with links)
 Fang
& Schleppegrell (2010) Disciplinary
Literacies and Functional Language Analysis
(longer article; read for generalities and key
examples)
 Buehl, Chapter
3: Text Frames (read and connect
to other readings)
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Homework
 Please
note: Your Diverse Text Set
Assignment is due next Tuesday (March
26). You should have a paper copy to hand
in AND upload a version to the wikispace.