Organizing StrategyJigsaw / or Missing Piece

Royce Bullard-Locklear Magnolia School- Public Schools of Robeson County

NCTA – Summer AcademyWestern Carolina University

June 2007

Introduction Steps Example How It Works Links

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~arz25/

IntroductionThe Jigsaw Reading or Missing Pieces strategy is used to engage all students in the reading process and in the organization of information.

Jigsaw Reading or Missing Pieces is a collaborative reading strategy that has multiple applications for classroom instruction. Students are divided into groups. Each group member is responsible for gleaning major facts from a small portion of a reading selection (section, one chapter, or one paragraph) and presenting those facts to the rest of the group.

The Jigsaw Reading activity provides a purpose for reading by asking students to complete specific organizational tasks while reading, such as answering questions, determining main ideas, finding details, noting terminology, working math problems, etc.

Step One

Select a reading passage that can

be broken into multiple sections.

Step Two

Create the Jigsaw or Missing Pieces organizer with enough puzzle pieces for each section of the reading selection. The Jigsaw/Missing Pieces organizer should provide learning tasks that will be completed during the reading.

http://www.dreamstime.com/missingpiece-image357982

Step Three Divide students into

groups with enough individuals in each group to

coincide with the number of sections in

the reading selection. These groups should be

considered the home groups.

Step Four Assign each member of the home group a

portion of reading selection and give each member of the home group a piece of the organizer. Each group member will be responsible for providing the “missing pieces” of the information for his or her portion of thereading selection.

http://www.dreamstime.com/retroreeltoreelw/missingpiece-image181568

Step Five

Regroup students by allowing all those with the same assigned reading sections to work together as smaller “expert” groups.

http://www.msu.edu/~arnoldc5/stuteach.htm

Step Six

The experts should read their assigned

portion and complete the Missing Pieces

activity.

http://www.avatarepc.com/html/puzzle12-1.html

Step Seven Once the expert groups have completed

their tasks, they should return to their home group.

http://history.lawrence.com/project/teacher/mandersen/images/portfolio/220teaching.htm

Step Eight Each member of the home group should

teach the group the “missing pieces” of information so that all group members can complete all portions of the organizer.

http://www.orgsites.com/nc/progressivenetworkacademy/_pgg3.php3

Example• This is a website that has several lesson

and examples using jigsaw from

Jigsaw Helper http://www.jigsawhelper.net/

• This is a lesson using jigsaw from

Jigsaw Helper : US Presidents

http://www.jigsawhelper.net/uspresidents/

How This Strategy Enhances Literacy

• Testimonials from Teachers Latisha Sullivan, an eighth grade Language Arts teacher states, “Jigsaw is

a group structure that can be used across all content areas. Students start with a home group. The home group is responsible for learning an assigned portion of a task that is decided by the teacher. Then the teacher separates students into new groups -- jigsaw groups -- by assigning one member from each home group to a new group. If an activity begins with groups A, B, C, and D, the jigsaw groups have a member from A, B, C, and D. In the jigsaw groups, students share information and complete their jigsaw piece. The students return to the home group and re-teach the information to the home group and put all the pieces together.

"I do believe this method is great for middle school students and high school students, too," said Sullivan "Adolescents love their peers. They are social butterflies and jigsaw activities feed into their developmental needs.”

Internet Links

• 50+ Strategies – Webpage

• NC SCoS

• Jigsaw Reading Strategy