DR‐TA Strategy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Harmony Books, New York, 1979
Context: If the students dislike reading by helping them predict what is going to happen will help them
find a way to make the story they read more enjoyable when they learn better prediction strategies.
Purpose: The DR‐TA Strategy (Directed reading‐thinking activity) is used to provide a guide for what the
students can do in analyzing a novel
through prediction, verification, judgment
and extension of thought. Teacher
reads a passage within the novel and
What do you
stops at a certain spot and asks
three important questions:
Why do you
think so?
think will
happen next?
What else
might happen?
Rationale: Students will be able to take the book, novel, short story that they are reading and make it
more of their own instead of the teacher telling them and forcing them into what they need to read and
how they need to read. There are other strategies and if we show the students many different types and
let them choose which the best is, they will read for enjoyment and not just for school.
Directions:
Step One
As we have been reading a little within the book, now we are going to discuss a strategy that we
can do while reading. Before we have read that Earth has blown up and the two hitch hiker’s have been
caught by Vogons who hate hitchhikers. Now while we are reading I am going to interject with questions
and start a discussion of what might happen. Turn to chapter 7, pg 45.
Step Two
After reading the first two paragraphs on page 45, I would ask the three major questions. Then
see where the students take it. I would have a student write on the board the different predictions and
how poetry is going to ruin the hitchhiker’s life or if they are going to survive, how their life is going to
change because of what might happen.
Holst, BYU, 2009
Step Two
Now we are going to read onward until the Vogon is finished reading his poetry. Now people
won’t be able to understand the poetry but what actions would Arthur have that might differ from Ford
and so forth. I would stop on Page 46. Half way down that page when the Vogon gives the two an
ultimatum.
Step Three
After doing it twice with them, I would make sure they can do it on their own. Tell them to grab
out a piece of paper and read to a certain spot, Pg. 50 at the end of the first sentence. Tell them to
answer the questions silently and what could happen. When they can do it themselves, after this tell
them when something big is happening ask these few questions to help them make the book their own.
Step Four (Finishing the Lesson)
When most of them completed doing it by themselves bring them together and start to have a
discussion with the students of what they can do to predict it. At this moment of starting something new
takes a lot of time but with practice they will do this automatically while reading. Wrapping it up to
show them how it can continue the enrichment of reading.
Assessment: The teacher can assess the students able to read orally, level of comprehension, and how active the
students are searching for meanings. These assessments inform subsequent instruction in the text. The use of
a picture book as an introduction to the more difficult text engages readers in the subsequent reading and
activates schema.
Holst, BYU, 2009