Card

S-I-T (Surprising, Interesting, Troubling)

Summary

Using this strategy, students identify something they find surprising, interesting, and troubling about the selected stimulus. Using S-I-T, students can summarize and demonstrate their interaction with a text, image, or video. This strategy can help students gather their thoughts to be shared in small-group and/or whole-class discussions.

Procedure

Select a stimulus (text, video, or image) with which you would like your students to engage.
Optionally, provide three 3x5 index cards to each student or a similar means of letting students record their thoughts.
After students have interacted with the stimulus, ask them to identify one surprising fact or idea, one interesting fact or idea, and one troubling fact or idea.
If using index cards or similar, have students write their responses on separate index cards and write their initials on each.
Ask students to share their S-I-T responses in small groups and/or as a part of a whole-class discussion.
As an alternative, consider collecting and reading students’ responses to gauge how they are feeling about the content presented in the lesson.

Facing History and Ourselves. (n.d.). S-I-T: Surprising, Interesting, Troubling. https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/s-i-t-surprising-interesting-troubling.