Anticipatory Sets and Closure

Closure and Anticipatory Sets—what is the purpose of?

Anticipatory sets are designed as “hooks” for a lesson or unit (McTighe & Wiggins, 2005). Thus the reason for the term “anticipatory” (i.e. anticipation) in the name. They are designed to catch the student’s interest the activities that are about to transpire. There are multiple purposes for including an anticipatory set in a lesson (and at the beginning of the unit): 1. It supposedly gets the student’s attention (i.e. used as a way to generate curiosity in what is about to occur). 2. It tells students about the topic of the unit or lesson. 3. It can be used to reference previous learning experiences and student knowledge (activating prior knowledge) as a way to bridge learning from one day to the next (providing continuity); and finally, 4. It can (and should) be used by the teacher as a guide for “where to go” today—or in other words, can act as a pre-assessment. When students, during an anticipatory set activity such as brainstorming, demonstrate more knowledge than the teacher thought them previous in possession of, the teacher should adjust plans to avoid covering already-learned material in more than a “brief” fashion (so as to not bore anyone).

It isn’t always easy, of course, to “hook” students when what you are about to teach is as boring as watching water erosion in slow motion. It is particularly important, at these times, to activate prior knowledge and to try to present what is about to take place in a way that demonstrates that even if it is not exciting, that it will be of benefit to students even outside of the content class.

Take poetry, for example, in an 8th grade level Language Arts class. When a teacher opens the day by telling students, “alright, little pumpkins, this next six weeks we will be starting a poetry unit!”—no matter how much excitement he/she has in her voice (and no matter how many exclamation marks he/she adds to it on the objective on the board)—students will immediately begin groaning and moaning and wishing for death. It is, admittedly, often difficult for students to access poetry. Thick with figures of speech, and not adhering to the conventions that students have been forced to follow since the day they picked up a pencil in school (using capitals at the beginning of a sentence, proper punctuation, etc.), poetry presents students with little familiarity (or proficiency) with a challenge. Even worse, they have spent at least half of their school experience learning that poetry rhymes. Give them a poem that doesn’t rhyme and that doesn’t have punctuation and that contains figures of speech and archaic language forms, and it is certain that eyes will glaze over immediately. Thus, anticipatory sets for poetry have to occur over time—that is, the teacher needs to start the beginning of the year by slipping poetry here and there without making a big deal of it (aside from having students engaging in a class discussion about what it contains) and then when the poetry unit begins, the enthusiasm that the teacher worked to generate should squelch some of the groans. Also, students will have been spoon-fed poetry without having to do assignments on it, thus paving the way for the real “anticipatory statement” at the beginning of the unit for poetry.

Anticipatory sets can also include review of vocabulary, brainstorming, KWL charts (DomNwachukwu, 2005), and/or sharing of homework or classwork from previous day.

- McTighe, J. & Wiggins, G. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
- DomNwachukwu, C. (2005). Standards-Based Planning and Teaching in Multicultural Classroom. Multicultural Education, 13(1), 40-4. Retrieved from Education Full Text database.

Closure, as should be obvious by the very name, is a way to conclude the lesson and give students a feeling of finality. It is considered to be the most direct way to remind students about what they should have learned (what they hopefully DID learn) and can also be used to preview what will be happening tomorrow, particularly if tomorrow’s lesson will be an extension of the project or activity.

Closure for single lessons often takes place in the form of exit slips, whole-class discussions or sharing of findings of the day, presentation of work completed. Closure for units might involve self-reflection in addition to those used for daily lessons; because self-reflection is not typically utilized in the classroom, students rarely know how to complete the activity in a meaningful manner and time should be spent teaching students how to evaluate their own learning beyond the directionless “what did I learn today” question that is often presented.

Yet, the secondary purpose of closure is not as apparent as the name itself. If closure involves more than the teacher merely summarizing “what we learned today” and students are asked for input, then the teacher should be utilizing information gleaned during closure for informal assessment purposes. The teacher will learn not only what students were able to accomplish, but will be able to see misunderstanding that pop up or insights that were not previously anticipated. This knowledge will guide subsequent planning for the class—does something need to be re-taught? Should students be allowed a second day of class to complete an assignment? Do students obviously know the information and thus we should move on? Which students are struggling? Which students are more advanced than others and might be able to help lead group discussions as “experts”? When a teacher takes a second or two to utilize closure for more than just gathering assignments and summarizing information, informal assessment takes place.

Source previewed but not directly referenced:
- Johnson, A. (2000). It's time for Madeline Hunter to go: a new look at lesson plan design. Action in Teacher Education, 22(1), 72-8. Retrieved from Education Full Text database.