Personalized Reading by Haiken Michele;Furman Robert l.; & L. Robert Furman

Author:Haiken, Michele;Furman, Robert l.; & L. Robert Furman [Haiken, Michele & Furman, L. Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: International Society for Technology in Education
Published: 2018-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

JIGSAWS AND THE TIMES

Advanced readers are looking for challenging texts to read. Whether literary or nonfictional, choice reading in the classroom allows all students to find their “just right text.” Many of the reading units in my classroom offer three or more book selections to support a wide variety of readers. Students sample the books, and then choose the one that they want to read.

Choice is beneficial with shorter texts as well, and jigsaw activities enable you to provide a range of four or more texts at various reading levels all centered on a particular theme or topic. A cooperative learning activity, a jigsaw allows students to read a specific text, share their insight and findings with a small group, and then collaborate with other students to synthesize and evaluate all the readings into a whole. Advanced readers might receive a more complex text to work with than their ELL classmates, because the passages can be at multiple reading levels. When the individual readers subsequently join together in small groups, like putting together a puzzle to build a picture, they can construct a greater understanding that includes all the readings.

FIGURE 4.2 is an example of a jigsaw to introduce background information about the short story writer William Sydney Porter whose pen name was O. Henry. For this particular jigsaw, I provided three biographies about O. Henry, each catering to a distinct reading level. The articles are color-coded and every student receives the same cover sheet with directions so as not to call attention to the different readings each student is presented with. Students read the article closely, taking notes in the margins and underlining important details. Then, I sort the students into small groups (one of each article per group) to answer a series of questions that requires all three articles to answer. Students work cooperatively to pull together the information from the various articles and make connections between the author and the characters in his short stories. The complexity of the texts range to support the diverse readers in the class. Jigsaws come in all shapes and sizes and can be modified to support the students in your classroom by text and activities.

FIGURE 4.2 In this jigsaw activity, students read different biographies about the author O. Henry and then collaborate to complete a scavenger hunt about his life and its impact on his writing.

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