How to Set Up Stations for Any Text

One thing I love to use in my classroom is stations. They allow me to guide students instead of always relying on direct instruction. Stations are especially helpful when we hit a slump in the schedule, like right before a holiday break or at the end of the school year. During these times, students seem to lose motivation, and keeping them engaged can be a challenge.

So, if you are seeing a lot of eye rolls, blank stares, or students who seem checked out and unmotivated to work, you might want to try this no-fail station idea. It works with just about any written text, video text, or cultural article.

I often use this approach when working with my interpretive texts. Although these text packets can be completed independently or used during direct instruction, sometimes I want to extend the learning and make the activities last longer than a day or two.

The good news is that this station plan is cyclical. It consists of three parts: activating prior knowledge through pre-reading or pre-viewing activities, interacting with the text during reading or viewing, and completing stations after students have worked with the text.

Let’s walk through how to put it all together!

Selecting Your Text

Before you start creating activities, you need a text that is comprehensible to your students. When information is too difficult to understand, students can shut down or become disengaged with the entire process.

Aim for a text that is approximately 90–95% comprehensible. In other words, we don’t want to teach students 25 new words just to get them through a text. For this activity, we want students to understand most of what they are reading or viewing without becoming frustrated.

Look for a text (print or video) that:

• Uses high-frequency words.
• Provides visual support when possible.
• Presents information in short paragraphs or manageable chunks.
• Uses familiar grammatical structures.
• Provides clear context and outcomes.

Choosing a more comprehensible text means you can spend less time introducing the material and more time allowing students to dive deeper and interact with the content in meaningful ways.

Prime and Prepare

In the first phase, we want to build curiosity and interest in what students will be reading or viewing. You never want to simply hand students an article or turn on a video and say, “Read this” or “Watch this.” Let’s be honest. The chances of every student jumping right in and staying engaged are pretty slim!

Instead, curate activities that spark curiosity and support students as they work through the learning process.

The activities you assign during the pre-reading or pre-viewing phase should pique students’ interest and build their confidence. We want them to feel ready to tackle the learning tasks that come next.

Here are a few activities you can use to kick-start your learning cycle.

Pre-Reading Activity #1: Pre-Quiz

Instead of immediately assigning questions about the text, give students a pre-quiz that allows them to show what they already know or make predictions about what they think will happen.

You can easily turn this into a multiple-choice Google Form.

Try questions like:

• What do you think will happen to the main character?
• What do you think this word means?
• What do you think will be a problem for the character?
• Where do you think the story takes place?
• What do you predict will happen next?

Now, let’s turn that pre-quiz into a game!

Place students in groups of three. I like working in groups of three, but partners or groups of four work, too. Have students number off within their groups. For a group of three, each student gets a number: 1, 2, or 3.

Give each group a whiteboard and marker. Students discuss the possible answers and agree on one. Then, randomly pull a number. I like to write the numbers on popsicle sticks, but a piece of paper in a cup works just as well.

The student whose number is called writes the group’s answer on the whiteboard. When everyone is ready, call out, “Flip the boards!”

Teams with correct answers can earn points in a few different ways:

• Roll a die: The number rolled determines how many points the team earns.
• Use an online spinner: Let the spinner determine the points.
• Play a round of trash-can basketball: Set up different point zones around the room and give the student three pieces of paper to shoot. The location of each basket determines the points earned.

Turning the activity into a game makes it more fun, but it still serves an important purpose: activating prior knowledge and encouraging students to make predictions.

I learned the idea behind this activity from Claudia Elliott on the Growing with Proficiency podcast. It’s a great example of how we can make learning engaging without losing sight of our instructional goals.

Pre-Reading Activity #2: Pictures

Pictures are a fantastic way to get students talking and spark their curiosity. You can use one picture or a series of pictures, but I recommend showing just one at a time.

Here’s how it works:

1. Show an image to the class.
2. Have students work in pairs to create questions about the image.
3. Set a time limit and a specific number of questions you want each pair to generate.
4. Invite pairs to share one of their questions with the class.

Don’t worry about answering every question right away. The goal is to get students curious and thinking about the topic before they encounter the text.

After students finish reading or viewing, revisit their questions. Ask which ones they can now answer and discuss where they found the information. This is a great way to reinforce learning and help students recognize how much they have learned.

Pro tip: Our students desperately need help with forming and asking questions. This activity is excellent practice for that skill.

Pre-Reading Activity #3: Vocabulary Match

If your text includes a few unfamiliar vocabulary words, a vocabulary matching game is a great way to introduce them before students begin reading or viewing.

Create two cards for each word. One card contains the target vocabulary, and the other contains its English meaning. Mix the cards together and give each group a set to sort.

To help students understand the vocabulary in context, provide example sentences using the target words. These sentences can come directly from the text or be ones you create to make the meaning easier to understand.

Give students time to work together to match the cards and discuss their choices. Circulate and check the accuracy of each group.

Remember, we want the text to be 90–95% comprehensible. We aren’t trying to pre-teach every word! Keep the vocabulary list short so students can complete the activity quickly and move on to the actual text.

Give Students Something to Do

Now it’s time for the during-reading or during-viewing phase.

The goal here is to give students a reason to interact with the text instead of passively reading or watching. We want them to pay attention, notice important information, and think about what they are learning.

During-Reading Activity #1: Annotate

Annotating is a great way to get students thinking about a text as they read or watch. The process looks a little different depending on whether students are working with a printed text or a video text.

Start by assigning symbols that represent different types of thinking.

• Heart: Something they connect with.
• Question mark: Something they don’t understand or want to ask about.
• Check mark: Something they already know.
• Exclamation point: Something they learned or something that surprised them.

Students can easily mark these symbols in the margins of a printed text. But how do we do this with a video text?

Here are two ways to make it work.

Option 1: Use a graphic organizer.

Create a graphic organizer with each symbol and space for students to record a timestamp and a brief note about their thinking. This option provides more structure and works well for students who need a little extra guidance.

For example:

• 1:24 ? — I didn’t understand why the person made that decision.
• 2:10 ♥ — This reminds me of something that happened to me.
• 3:05 ! — I learned something new about Deaf culture.
• 3:42 ✓ — I already knew that ASL has its own grammar.

Option 2: Create a running list of annotations.

For students who need less structure, have them keep a running list of symbols, timestamps, and notes as they move through the video. They can record their thinking in a notebook or digital document.

I recommend having students go through the text once, take a short brain break, and then return to the text to add anything they missed during the first viewing.

Students can work independently or with a partner. If they work with a partner, consider having them switch partners for the second viewing. A new partner can bring a different perspective and help students notice things they might have missed.

The important thing is that students have a purpose for watching. They’re not just watching the video again because we told them to!

Now for Stations

I know you’re probably wondering where the stations are in a blog post dedicated to this activity. Well, here they are!

The stations come after students have finished reading or viewing the text and have had an opportunity to interact with it.

At this point, students are familiar with the content. They have activated prior knowledge, made predictions, and recorded their thinking. Now, stations give them a reason to return to the text with a new purpose.

Instead of saying, “Read or watch it again,” you can say, “Now we’re going to use what we’ve learned to complete some fun tasks!”

I like this approach because students are doing more than answering the same comprehension questions over and over. They are revisiting the content, applying what they understand, and interacting with the material in different ways.

Station Activity Ideas

The possibilities are endless, but here are some activities you can use with almost any written text, video for translation, or cultural article.

• Comprehension questions: Answer questions that demonstrate understanding of the text.
• Sequencing or matching: Put events in order, match descriptions to images, or connect information to the correct category.
• Sentence creation: Use information from the text to create original sentences.
• Story summary: Summarize the main ideas or important events.
• Graphic organizers: Organize information into categories, compare ideas, or identify cause and effect.
• Cartoon Olympics: Represent important events or ideas from the text through quick cartoon drawings or emojis.
• Revisit pre-reading questions: Return to the questions students generated before reading and see which ones they can now answer.
• Interpersonal dialogues: Create a conversation based on the text, its characters, or the cultural information presented.
• Change the ending: Rewrite or retell the ending of a story, or imagine what might happen next.
• Multiple-choice quiz: Complete a short quiz to check comprehension.
• Three-image comic strip: Choose three important moments from the text and represent them in a comic strip.
• Three-image comic strip: Write 10 facts, events, or ideas from the text that you understood.

When planning your stations, keep the directions clear and the activities manageable. You want students to be able to complete each task in roughly the same amount of time, so rotations run smoothly.

You also don’t need to create completely new materials for every station. You can often adapt activities you already use in your classroom. A few well-planned tasks can go a long way!

If you need a little help getting started, you can read more about organizing stations here and learn how to create stations for your ASL classroom here.

Bringing It All Together

What I love about this approach is that it turns one text into several opportunities for meaningful learning. Instead of rushing through an article or video in one class period, you can spread the learning across multiple days while giving students different ways to interact with the content.

The cycle is simple:

1. Prime and prepare: Activate prior knowledge, spark curiosity, and build confidence.
2. Read or view: Give students a purpose for interacting with the text through annotation.
3. Rotate through stations: Let students revisit the content, demonstrate comprehension, and apply what they’ve learned.

And the best part? You can use this approach with a text you already have!

So, the next time your students seem a little checked out, try changing up the way they interact with a text. Sometimes, a little variety and a chance to take a more active role in learning are exactly what they need.

Want to use graphic organizers at your next station?

Free Graphic Organizers for the Language Classroom

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I’d love to hear how you use stations in your classroom. What are your favorite activities for helping students engage with a text?

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