Ep 1: Create Student Buy In with These Three Strategies

This episode is all about three strategies to create student buy in and precisely how to do it. We walk you through three specific strategies you can take and implement in your classroom right away.

Strategy #1: Popcorn Predictions Activity

This activity gets students up and out of their seats – “popping” around the room to make predictions about the text. You can read a more in-depth blog post all about this activity and how to set it up in your classroom by clicking here.

Strategy #2: Post-It Note Posters

If the text you’re studying has any sort of controversial elements to it, this makes for a great pre-reading activity! Simply come up with 5 debatable or interesting questions, print them out on paper, and hang them up in various places around your classroom.

Then, have students write their answers to each of the questions on a post-it note, placing each post-it note answer near the corresponding question.

Once all students are finished, walk around the room and share some of their answers!

My students always love doing this activity before we start reading Romeo and Juliet. You can read more about exactly how I do that and the questions I use in this blog post by clicking here.

Strategy #3: Suspense-Building Posters

Let me give you an example of this, so you can see what it looks like in action …

Before we read Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” I like to get my class excited for this unit by hanging up posters all around the classroom about a week before we read the story, that read: “June 27: All villagers meet in the town square. Everyone is expected to attend. No excuses!”

I don’t address the posters at all and let the kids wonder what could possibly be happening. Talk about building suspense …

By the time we are ready to read, students have completely bought into that day’s lesson and are filled with anticipation!

There are plenty of other texts that would benefit from this strategy – just start thinking outside the box and begin applying to your units!

If you’re not already a member of our Secondary English Teacher Community on Facebook, make sure to hop over there and join us for free monthly resources, challenges, and FB lives.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Popcorn Predictions Activity
• Romeo + Juliet Pre-Reading Post-It Notes

Want to listen to even more episodes?

• Episode #2: How to Overcome 3 Writing Mistakes You Might be Making
• Episode #3: Constructive Criticism: How to Change Your Mindset and be Open to Feedback

To download this episode, just click here!

Make sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes!