Wraparound

This teaching strategy was originally designed for use in a face-to-face setting. For tips and guidance on how to use this teaching strategy in a remote or hybrid learning environment, view our Wraparound (Remote Learning) teaching strategy.

Rationale

To implement the Wraparound strategy, you pose a question or prompt to the class and then have each student share aloud their quick response. This strategy provides an efficient way for all students in a classroom to share their ideas about a question, topic, or text, revealing common themes and ideas in students’ thinking. Wraparound activities can also be provocative discussion starters.

Procedure

Provide a Prompt
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.
Students Share Responses
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.
Listen for Common Themes or Surprises
After everyone has shared, you can ask students to report back on common themes that have emerged or on something that surprised them.

Variations

Select-a-Sentence: 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.