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c
After each member of the group understands the assignment, the group decides how best to represent the information to others and prepares index cards, maps, illustrations, timelines, or other material to use in their explanations.
c
The teacher rearranges the students into new groups (jigsaw groups), with one member from each home group assigned to a jigsaw group. (Students can be numbered off so that all ones join one group and all twos join another group.)
c
Students share what they have learned about their particular area in their jigsaw groups.
c
The jigsaw group completes a project or product to share with the class. In this example, one group could put together a chronological timeline showing the events leading up to World War II, while another might create a map showing how an event in one country affected another event in another country.
In the end, each student has been responsible for becoming an expert on one particular aspect of a topic, communicating that information to others, and learning from others in order to show understanding of the whole topic.
Targeted Strategy 2: Buy your seat. This activity works particularly well in a homeroom or conversation class, but can be modified to work in many different kinds of classrooms. Upon entering the classroom, students are asked to “buy” their seat by providing a piece of information before they sit down. The information can be about the students’ personal or school lives (for example, they won their soccer game the day before), a local event (for example, there is a big sale at Macy’s), a news event (for example, there was an earthquake in Turkey), sports or weather news (for example, the Super Bowl is this Sunday; it’s supposed to rain tomorrow). No news or information can be repeated, so if students repeat something that has already been reported, they have to think of something new. For this reason, students are encouraged to come to class with a couple of ideas for “buying” their seat. In content-area classrooms, students may be asked to limit their responses to a particular subject. For example, in a math class they can talk about how they used math that day (for example, to count change for the bus); or, in a science class they can be asked to provide a review of something they 106
Teaching English Language Learners: Grades 6 & Up © Katherine Davies Samway & Dorothy Taylor, Scholastic Teaching Resources
understand the events leading up to World War II, each group could be assigned one important event to cover (for example, Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, the Nazi party’s rise to power, Germany’s invasion of Poland).