Getting Hooked

As educators we spend quite a lot of time focusing our instruction and planning on content standards. We want to teach exactly what will be assessed and we want to maximize our time on those standards. Teachers spend time planning in their departments and over the summers focusing on the small nuances of state standards and how to fit each of those into lessons for the semester. With all of that time on standards, I think that sometimes we miss an essential first piece. We have to focus on the "hook." My clinical teacher always made me start each lesson with a hook. He said that if I didn't grab student attention in the first 5-10 minutes, then the rest of the lesson could be worthless.

Teaching has a lot in common with sales. You have to convince your class to buy into what you are doing. Your lesson is your product and they are your consumers. Every good salesman has a sales pitch and they know just when and how to use it. Teachers are the same. Now that the first semester's lessons are behind us and out content objectives have been taught, focus your second semester revisions on the hook. Grab student attention in the first few minutes to make all of your work on standards planning worth it.