Realistically, students won’t remember the content of the texts they look at in class when they go home. So, we should make what they do with the texts as memorable as possible.
Get students to draw a Venn diagram and discuss reactions they have in common and reactions they differ on, e.g. on a text on shark attacks, one student may be scared and the other may be intrigued, but they may both be surprised about the story.
If you give a strict, short time limit to find and note down similarities and differences, it encourages students to ask lots of questions in a short amount of time, e.g. What did you think of…? Were you surprised by…? etc.
A Venn diagram is also useful for a ‘getting to know you activity’. Students can use these to find things they have and don’t have in common.