Scams, Fraud, & Identity Theft Anticipation Guide and Self-Assessment | SEL | High School

About This Resource

★ Topic - Scams, Fraud, & Identity Theft

★ Anticipation Guide and Self-Assessment

★ 3 pages

★ Suitable for Middle and High School Students

★ Print and Digital (PDF and Google Slides)

★ SEL-related resource

This resource includes:

★ One Anticipation Guide in* two* variations (one with a "comments" section and one without - same statements)

★ One Self-Assessment Worksheet

★ Google Slides Link

Scams, fraud, and identity theft are increasingly common in today’s digital world, especially through text messages, emails, social media, gaming platforms, and online shopping sites. Teenagers are often targeted because they are highly active online and may not always recognize warning signs such as urgency, threats, fake emergencies, impersonation, or suspicious requests for personal information. Understanding how scams work and learning how to recognize red flags are essential life skills that help students protect their identity, finances, and digital safety.

This Scams, Fraud & Identity Theft Anticipation Guide encourages students to think critically about online safety, digital responsibility, and common scam tactics that target young people. Through thought-provoking statements, students examine misconceptions such as whether official-looking messages are always legitimate, whether scammers can impersonate trusted companies, whether fraud only happens online, and whether ignoring suspicious messages is always enough to stay safe.

By responding to reflective statements, students are encouraged to slow down, question assumptions, and analyze how their habits and decisions influence their vulnerability to scams and online fraud.

The Scam Awareness Self-Assessment invites students to evaluate how consistently they practice safe online behaviors and digital decision-making skills. Students reflect on habits such as verifying suspicious messages, protecting passwords, avoiding personal information oversharing, recognizing common scam tactics, checking website legitimacy, researching opportunities online, and responding cautiously to unknown contacts.

By rating their behaviors, students identify strengths, areas for growth, and patterns that may increase or decrease their risk of falling victim to scams or identity theft.

Anticipation Guides are excellent tools that can be used before reading to activate students' prior knowledge and build curiosity about a new topic and/or to share ideas about key concepts. Students respond to several statements that challenge or support their preconceived ideas about key concepts as well as their peers’ ideas. Anticipation Guides help structure meaningful conversations that review what students already know while engaging them in critical thinking about the topic they will explore. The statements in these Anticipation Guides can spark powerful classroom discussions.

This Anticipation Guide and Self-Assessment focuses on Scams | Fraud | Identity Theft | Digital Safety | Online Awareness.

You can use an Anticipation Guide:
✅ Before | After introducing new material to activate prior knowledge
✅ Before | After watching a film clip or digital safety video
✅ Before | After reading an informational article about scams or identity theft
✅ Before | After discussing online safety or financial literacy topics

ANTICIPATION GUIDES This resource includes ONE Scams, Fraud & Identity Theft Anticipation Guide, provided in two variations to support different instructional needs.

▶️ Variation #1

⭐ Part 1: Students read a series of statements related to scams, fraud, and identity theft and indicate whether they AGREE or DISAGREE with each statement.
⭐ Part 2: Students choose one statement and reflect on why it is important. They may connect it to their own experiences, explain their reasoning, or describe how their thinking has changed.

▶️ Variation #2
This version includes the same set of statements with AGREE, DISAGREE, and COMMENTS columns.

Students mark their response and then expand on their thinking by writing explanations, reflections, or personal insights for each statement.

Skills Students Will Reflect On

★ Recognizing common scam tactics (urgency, threats, fake emergencies)
★ Evaluating suspicious messages and online offers
★ Identifying impersonation scams and fake company messages
★ Protecting personal and financial information online
★ Understanding identity theft and digital fraud risks
★ Critical thinking about online communication
★ Safe decision-making in digital environments
★ Digital responsibility and online awareness
★ Evaluating online opportunities and offers

SELF-ASSESSMENT

This resource also includes a Scam Awareness Self-Assessment designed to help students evaluate how often they practice safe online behaviors and financial decision-making habits.

Students score each statement using the following scale:
2 = Regularly | 1 = Occasionally | 0 = Never

The scoring guide helps students understand their current level of scam awareness and online safety habits:

✔ 27–32 points: Strong Awareness
✔ 20–26 points: Developing Awareness
✔ 12–19 points: At Risk
✔ 0–11 points: High Risk

This self-assessment encourages honest reflection while helping teachers, counselors, and advisors gain insight into students’ online habits, decision-making patterns, and awareness of common scam tactics.

Perfect for middle school, high school, advisory periods, SEL lessons, digital citizenship units, financial literacy classes, life skills courses, counseling sessions, and small group discussions.

This resource promotes digital responsibility, critical thinking, and scam awareness, while encouraging meaningful reflection and conversations about how students can protect themselves from fraud, identity theft, and online scams in the modern digital world.

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Created by © Queen's Educational Resources | All Rights Reserved
Your purchase includes one copy to be used in a single classroom. If you are looking for multiple copies, please be sure to purchase additional licenses.

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Please feel free to email me if you have any questions!
queenseducationalresources@gmail.com