6th October 2009 Jigsaw Puzzle. Oops, I mean Jigsaw Reading!

We almost fell off our chairs the moment Miss Dzeelfa mentioned that we were to reading a 14-page long speech for today’s in-class activity! My goodness, how are we supposed to read and make sense out of such a long text with so little time allocated? In the midst of chaos and panic, our lecturer calmed the storm by introducing a very wise reading strategy, that is, jigsaw reading. The speech was ‘cut’ up and each of us was assigned to different parts of the speech. We then proceed to our ‘expert groups’ whereby those who have the same extracts will sit down and brainstorm the main messages raised in that particular part of the speech. After the brainstorming session, we then go back to our original group and explain the product of the brainstorming session to our fellow group members. As each of the group members discusses their extract, we were able to understand the message of the whole speech without having to go through the hassle of reading the 14-page long speech by Malcolm X. The brainstorming process was a crucial part in jigsaw reading as these ‘expert groups’ need to comprehend the assigned extract so that each of the members in the ‘expert group’ can explain their extracts effective to their group members in the original groups. Sadly some of the members in my ‘expert group’ were rather passive. They were not actively participating in the brainstorming session; instead they were waiting for people to spoon-feed them with the meaning of the extracts. PARASITES!!! It irks me, these good-for-nothing, blood-sucking leeches! I mean, hello! It would not hurt if you open our mouth and contribute some ideas to the discussion! Even if your ideas are not ‘intellectual’, at least put in some effort to show that you are part of this ‘expert group’! What made things worst was that the only male specimen in my ‘expert group’ was too selfish to share his thoughts! Although he had some thoughtful insights to the extract which was assigned to us, he kept his mouth tightly sealed as if he applied UHU glue onto his lips. For goodness sake, share your ideas during the discussion to clear confusions. No! This guy just sat his overweight bottom onto the chair, criticizing and scorning at our misinterpretations of the extract! People, group discussion is all about active participation by all members, therefore, by all means, throw whatever ideas you have and do not hesitate! Even if your insights are not accepted, it does not implied tat your idea was of no good. We learn from the mistakes we made and knowledge is meant to be shared and no kept in secret! The jigsaw reading activity we did indeed overcome the problem of reading a long text and would certainly be an effective strategy to apply to our lessons in the near future. It saves a lot of time and students are in a way ‘pushed’ to interact among each other in order to produce something, in this case, the meaning for each extract. However, jigsaw reading also has its short comings. In order to carry out jigsaw reading, the teacher should first consider the size of the classroom and the noise level of the discussion. Note that ample space should be provided so that students can move around comfortably to form their ‘expert groups’. Secondary school students are noisy by nature so the teacher should also consider the amount of noise that will be generated during the brainstorming session. We certainly do not want the teacher from the next class to accuse the teacher for not being able to control the class. Besides that, students might be tempted to use their mother tongue during the discussion if the teacher grants tem all the freedom to carry out the brainstorming session on their own. Therefore, the teacher should take note that students are using the target language when they carry out the brainstorming session. It will be of no benefit if students carry out the discussion in their mother tongue most of the time. Besides that, the teacher should walk around the class and spend some time to listen to the discussions in each group so as to ensure active participation from every group member and also offer help when students are in need.