Pre-Reading Activities

The following is a random list of activities which have worked well in my classes. It is by no means complete. If you have a great or not so great idea ---- we´re all human after all --- I would really appreciate your contribution and you´ll be made immortal (at least for a while).

Before doing a poem or a song

• Pick out a couple of key terms and write them on the board. Have each student make notes on how the key terms could be connected and what the theme of the poem could be. The the students briefly present their ideas to the class. This way an increased sense of expectancy is created and the students will be ready for the actual text of the poem or song.
• Choose a short but interesting passage from the piece of literature and make the students guess what the whole thing is about.
• Frequently a picture/cartoon/photograph on a transparency offers itself as an ideal stimulus for expressing ideas about a theme. Before I do the song "Take Me Home Country Roads", for example, I show the students a couple of pics of the countryside of West Virginia.
• Take the central theme or image or the title, come to think of it, and have the students work out mindmaps around the respective item.
• Take the first line of the poem and have the students work out the next three lines in groups.

Before doing an argumentative/informative text or essay

• Write the title on the board in big letters. In a brief brainstorming session collect the ideas and information the students expect to find in the text.
• Write out a list of true/false statements which all refer to the information given in the text. Make the students go through the list and decide which of the statements are true. After that their findings will be confirmed or proved wrong. As always, this activity can be changed and adopted to your own needs. I have found that organising a kind of competition between rival groups has worked pretty well in most classes.