Organizing Strategy Jigsaw / or Missing Piece Royce Bullard-Locklear Magnolia School- Public Schools of Robeson County NCTA – Summer Academy Western Carolina University June 2007Magnolia School- Introduction Introduction Steps Example How It Works LinksSteps ExampleHow It Works Links

Introduction The 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.

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 the reading selection.

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

Step Six The experts should read their assigned portion and complete the Missing Pieces activity.

Step Seven Once the expert groups have completed their tasks, they should return to their home group.

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.

Example This is a website that has several lesson and examples using jigsaw from Jigsaw Helper This is a lesson using jigsaw from Jigsaw Helper : US Presidents

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