Friday, May 22, 2015

Jigsaw - A Strategy that is an "Oldie," but it's definitely still a "Goodie!"

The "Jigsaw" is an instructional strategy that has been around classrooms as far back as the 1970s.  It is definitely not "new," but it is still a strategy that can take students deeper into understanding content.  This strategy organizes an activity in such a manner that it makes student dependent on each other to succeed.  An activity is broken into "pieces" and students work in groups to put the pieces together.  There are many different ways that teachers utilize and design the "jigsaw" instructional strategy.

Mrs. Samantha Fletcher, a 4th grade teacher at Summit Elementary, recently used this strategy to help her students gain a better understanding of story structure.

Here is how the activity went:

My students love scary stories, but have struggled with story structure and citing evidence all year. I decided to tie the two together with a jigsaw story. 

Each student got a colored index car with a number on it, and a group discussion worksheet. We read our story out loud, together, first. 

Then the kids got into their groups based on the color of their cards. They read through the story again in their groups. 

Next, I had them get together in groups based on their numbers. The new groups read through the story a third time, but this time each group had a different "lens."

  • Group one focused on the main character. 
  • Group two focused on the setting. 
  • Group three focused on the supporting characters. 
  • Group four focused on the main plot points. 
  • Group five focused on the problems and solutions. 

Each student had a set of sticky notes, and wrote down what they learned about the focus topic. They then got back in to their color groups, shared what they learned, and put the notes on a poster. 

I saw "lightbulbs" go on, and was impressed with some of the higher level thinking I saw taking place. One group had to a lot of inferring and inferencing finally clicked for them!

Here are some pictures. The two are the color group, the next two are the numbered groups, and the last couple are the kids sharing and putting their notes on their poster.








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