An effective hook can set up students for authentic, cognitive and affective engagement (vs. simple behavioural engagement) and can help to activate prior knowledge. This handout, compiled by three teachers, briefly describes a variety of activating strategies that can be used as lesson hooks or, in some cases, as discussion or learning strategies at different points in a lesson or unit. Here also is a blog post on the Scarfe Digital sandbox I created to share some of the research and practice behind lesson hooks (it includes this HOOKS hand-out: SandboxHooks_rev-2019)

Just as an effective hook can activate prior knowledge, an effective closure can help wrap a lesson or unit. Closure can range from a very informal gathering of questions to support next steps or a preview of what’s coming next in a Unit or can support students summarizing what they’ve learned. The best closures (like the best hooks, IMHO) engage students actively in their learning! Here is a handout with some examples and descriptions of summarizing strategies.