Capture your students' attention with images

How do you introduce a new unit or any lesson to capture the attention of your students? Do you pose a question? Was it creative and unexpected? Maybe it was a simple review of what they learned in the previous lesson. There is a purpose of hooking your students for that fresh learning and setting the objective for each lesson. It can help activate prior knowledge, set the learning expectations and allow students to make connections between the content and real world. The use of images can be that creative and unexpected way to capture your student’s attention with the anticipation of new learning.

Strategy 1 - Half the picture

1. Locate an image that shows a big idea of the unit or lesson.
2. Make a copy of the image in order to edit using a photo editing tool to cover half of the picture.
3. Display the image that only shows ½ of the picture.
4. Using the 3-2-1 strategy, a great AVID strategy, have students organize their thoughts about what they think is happening in the picture.

For example

3 - List 3 things you notice in the picture

2 - 1 prediction of what might have happened before the picture, 1 prediction of what happened after the picture

1 - What evidence from the image proves your prediction?

Have students pair up to discuss their ideas with a peer.

Display the entire picture and lead a discussion of what actually happened and compare students’ ideas that were shared before.

Strategy 2 - Create a Six Word Story

Having students create a six-word story encourages them to creatively select critical ideas and summarize their own thoughts.

1. Display your image of choice that relates to the content.
2. Ask students to share what they see. Depending on the grade level you may want to record the ideas on the board for students to refer to when they write.
3. If this is a new strategy, you may want to model how to write the six-word story or ask students to work in pairs to write their stories. 
4. Have students publish their story on a shared Google document or Padlet to promote students.

Strategy 3 - Instagram captions

Students enjoy when they are able to use social media like activities to display their knowledge or understanding. It can provide a creative way for students to write about the content in the way they do in their personal lives.

1. Insert your image into the Instagram template on this Google Slide. Text boxes have been created as a guide.
2. Duplicate the slide for each student and, if needed, assign a slide to each student.
3. Instruct students to do a quick write to represent the image. Include the hashtags in their writing in order for the image to be “searchable”.
4. Assign students to provide peer feedback to at least a peer to promote the processing of the learning.

Of course, there are many ways to use images in a lesson. The strategies shared today hopefully provides some new creative ways to hook your students in the day’s learning and promote writing for learning. Leave a comment below and share how you have used images in your lessons or creative ways you have hooked your students’ attention.