How to Construct an Advance Organizer

1. Examine the new lesson or unit to discover necessary prerequisite knowledge. List it.
2. Find out if students know the prerequisite material.
3. Reteach if necessary.
4. List or summarize the major general principles or ideas in the new lesson or unit.
5. Write a paragraph (the advance organizer) emphasizing the major general principles, similarities similarities across old and new topics. See examples in the West, Farmer, and Wolf text. Use them as models.
6. The main subtopics of the unit or lesson should be covered in the same sequence as they are presented in the advance organizer.

     According to Mannes and Kintsch (1987), advance organizers that use the same sequence as the instructional materials facilitate processing and recall better than those that use a different sequence.

     Advance organizers that use a different sequence facilitate problem solving. For complex material presented to students the first time, you probably don't want to cause them any unnecessary problems.