Four Corners

This activity works well in all areas of curriculum: negotiating meaning of text, previewing, reviewing and/or summarizing a body of knowledge. The activity can be used to generate questions from the students or to answer questions that the instructor wants to emphasize. Later, I will demonstrate that it is also effective for bringing in student voices.

How to Do It

• Tape a large piece of butcher paper to the wall at each of the four corners of the room.
• Each piece of paper can be blank for student-generated questions that need to be studied, or the instructor can write a specific question on each of the four pieces of paper.
• Divide the whole group into four smaller groups. Each group needs one colored marker, and each group uses only its own color, which is different from the colors of the other groups.
• After each small group has discussed how to answer each question (or which question the group would like to generate for the whole group), the small groups rotate to each paper, writing their answers (or questions). After the groups have rotated and answered their questions, the whole group can analyze and discuss the answers.

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