Jigsaw Story Building

Age: 4th Grade and Up

Level: Low-Intermediate to Advanced

Time: 20+ minutes

Language Skills: Speaking-Listening; Brief reading

Participation: Small groups

Materials: Pieces of paper with the story broken into sections to match the number of groups. There will be only one section of the story on each piece of paper.

Procedures:

1. Divide the class into groups matching the number of sections.

2. Give each group one section of the story and tell them to read it carefully.

3. After the students have had enough time to read the section thoroughly, take up the sections.

4. Have one student from each group form a new group. Countine this until all the students are now in new groups in which each student has read a different section of the story.

5. Have the students retell their section of the story.

6. Students then decide what the correct order of the story is.

7. When finished, have the group retell the complete story to the class and compare with other groups.

Assessment: Informal observation

 

(This activity comes from the book: Using Folktales by Eric K. Taylor which is part of the useful Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)