Jigsaw

 *Instructional Grouping

=Strategy Name: Jigsaw =

Strategy Description:
•Jigsaw is a during reading strategy that increases comprehension. Jigsaw also promotes collaboration and discussion. With jigsaw, students have an opportunity to comprehend a broad range of material in a short amount of time.

Course:
•7th grade Applied Communications— a 9 week writing class that all 7th and 8th graders take as part of their Fine/Applied Arts rotation. •5 classes of 28-30 students •Classes include special educations students with IEP written expression and reading comprehension goals. Classes also include regular education students, English Language Learners, and gifted students.

Rationale:
•The students needed to comprehend a large amount of background information (10 pages) in a short amount of time. •The students are in their final weeks with me and have progressed to the point where they can manage a multi-step strategy. •I know the strengths and weaknesses of the students for the purpose of forming groups. •Middle school students love to work in small groups.

Procedure:
To be honest, this is the first time I have done a true jigsaw with all of the pieces intact. The book I used as a resource actually had a diagram of how the students move from their home groups to expert groups to home groups that was invaluable to me. 1.I made copies of 5 articles about the Roma people—background information for a persuasive letter we will write. To facilitate organization (and aid my visual learners) each article was a different color. 2.I divided the students into groups of 5 (one group member for each article). 3.I explained that this was their home group and designated a group leader to be in charge of the six articles (in a folder labeled with their home group’s letter). 4.Each home group member took an article and moved to a pre-assigned place in the classroom (labeled with the color-coded article on the wall). 5.I explained that this was their expert group and they were to read and discuss the article so that everyone in the expert group understood it (they had a chart to take notes). 6.After 10-15 minutes the students returned to their home groups to teach their article. 7.Home group members were expected to take notes on the chart for each article as it was taught. 8.The next day, I very briefly reviewed each article to make sure everyone had correct information and cleared up any questions.

Potential Issues:
•The activity went very well. I was nervous about the complicated steps/movement—I thought I’d have to do a lot of explaining, but the students got it on the first try. Most seemed to be engaged in reading/comprending/discussing in expert groups. The highest level of engagement took place when they returned to the home groups. Once they were the only one in the group to have read the article, the pressure was on. •I need to address the students who did not fully contribute during the expert group experience because as a result they were definitely weak links in their home groups. I was very actively moving around the room—and without my support/prompts there would have be misinformation being shared in home groups. •I needed some control over who got what article. I left it up to each group to handout articles and some difficult articles fell to students not equipped to handle it (even with support from the expert group).

References/Materials:

 * **Strategy from:** Fisher, D., Brozo, W.G., Frey, N., Ivey, G. (2007). //50 content area strategies for adolescent literacy//. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.




 * In binder:**
 * 1) Jigsaw notes
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; background-color: #ffff00;">Jigsaw diagram of how groups move ||