Welcome to Spotlight on Strategies Challenge! Our S.O.S series provides help, tips, and tricks for integrating DE media into your curriculum.
Four Corners
Background
The four corners teaching strategy is a cooperative teaching and learning strategy that empowers students to take part in group activities. It is a helpful strategy to use when students have been sitting and need some physical movement in order to refocus. The four corners strategy helps students develop listening, critical thinking, and decision-making skills in the classroom. According to eHow, this strategy “works well to engage all students in conversations about controversial topics.”
Example
- Write the words “Strongly Agree,” “Agree,” “Disagree,” and “Strongly Disagree” in bold words on poster paper. Post each of the four posters in the corners of the room.
- Have students watch the video segment Our Federal Government: The Legislative Branch.
- Display and read the following statement to students: “The House of Representatives should have an equal number of representatives from each state.”
- Provide students a few minutes to determine if they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the statement.
- Explain to students that they will now go stand in the corner that best represents their decision.
- Once in their corners, have students engage in a conversation with their peers, providing evidence to support their stance. It is important for students to collaborate with each other before it becomes a class discussion.
- Facilitate a group discussion to share their views on the statement. Students may say things such as:
- Strongly agree: They should have an equal number so that each state gets the same amount of votes.
- Strongly disagree: It would not be fair for a state with more people living there. If they have higher populations, they should have more representatives.
- After the group discussion, students may change their position in the room. If a student chooses to change positions, he or she must defend the choice.
- Have students write a paragraph in their journals about their positions on the statement.
Challenge
- Select a topic that matches your curriculum.
- Find an audio file, video segment, reading passage, or image for students to examine.
- Write “Strongly Agree,” “Agree,” “Disagree,” and “Strongly Disagree” in bold words on poster paper. Post one in each of the corners of the room.
- Share the video, audio, image, or reading passage with the students.
- Read a statement that pertains to the content.
- Once they have listened to the statement, students must decide if they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree.
- Provide a few minutes for students to think about their answer as they move to the appropriate corner of the room.
- At each corner, students will discuss their positions. It is important for students to collaborate with each other before it becomes a class discussion.
- Facilitate a group discussion to share their views on the statement.
- After a group discussion, students may change their position in the room. If a student chooses to change positions, he or she must defend the choice.
- Have students write a paragraph in their journals about their position on the statement.
You can take the challenge by:
- Implementing this strategy and letting us know how it went by posting a comment below.
- Using this strategies in your grade level planning discussions and/or professional development and reporting your events. (Remember we consider an event anytime 3 or more educators gather together… doesn’t have to be in a computer lab… could be sitting around the lunch table)
- Photocopying the flier and distributing it in your colleague’s boxes and/or posting it to your own BulleDEN board.
To see other strategies in this series click here. For a link to all the PDFs in this series click here.
I have used the \Four Corners\ activity in the past, but have not done so this year. Thanks for the reminder! We learn about citizenship and the requirements to become a US citizen. I plan to do this activity with the statement that is aligned with US policy: Candidates need to read, write, and speak basic English.
I will show \American Heritage: Immigration to the United States\ from DE prior to the Four Corner activity. This video has a wonderful Teacher’s Guide with additional material!
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