Literacy Strategy #7

Name of strategy
Four Corners Discussion

Brief description of the

strategy
 Helps support speaking, thinking, and in some uses, reading
 Students are asked to move around, engaging them more in
the topic at hand.
 Students can discuss their stance in small groups first before
being asked to share their ideas with the class.
 Students can discuss opposing ideas with one another

Explanation of how it can be Can be used for expansion after reading a text with certain themes
used included

 Teacher labels four corners of the room: Strongly Agree,

Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree
 The teacher generates controversial questions/statements
that connect to the topic or text being covered in class.
 When the teacher recites one of the controversial ideas,
students move to the corner of the room aligned with their
stance on the idea.
 After all students are in the appropriate corner, give students
a brief moment to discuss their stance with each other.
 Go around the room and call on the groups at each corner to
explain their reasoning for their stance; alternatively, have
the opposing sides briefly debate each other.

Source (doesn’t need to be http://www.thomasvilleschools.org/Downloads/Before-During-

APA) After%20Strategies%20(Toolkit).pdf