Wraparound

 Any question could be used as a prompt for a wraparound activity. Fill-in-the-blank statements such as “Justice is...” are especially effective when used with this strategy. Teachers often use the following prompt with the Wraparound strategy as a way to elicit students’ responses to a particular text they have recently read or viewed: “What words or phrases come to mind after seeing/reading this text?” Students should be given a minute or two to think about their responses before being asked to share.

One at a time, students share their brief responses. It often works best to have students simply respond in the order in which they are sitting. This way, you do not have to call on students to respond; once their neighbor has had a turn, students know it is their turn to present. In a wraparound activity, all students typically share their ideas, although it is possible to allow students to say “pass.” Be sure to tell students not to say anything except the particular response, because otherwise the activity will lose the desired effect.

After everyone has shared, you can ask students to report back on common themes that have emerged or on something that surprised them.

After reading a long text, instruct students to select one sentence that resonates with them or seems to be an important idea. Have students read that sentence aloud. Be sure to tell students to listen for common themes. It is okay if the same sentence is read more than one time. This exercise can also be done at the very beginning of a class, using the previous night’s reading assignment. In this way, everyone will be able to have some ideas about the text, even if they did not do the reading.