Jigsaw Reading Task
Students profile
15 Colombian students who are very interested in action movies and animation. All of them study
in a Colombian school where English is the second language. They are 11 years old and all of them
are in sixth grade. Most of them are B1 in international Standards.
Objective for the class: Students create their own definition of a hero by reading three different
texts and creating a group presentation.
Pre reading:
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In pairs, students are asked to Think-Pair-Share about who are their favorite heroes.
Then, they share their findings with the rest of the class.
Teacher writes the examples students provide on the white board.
While Reading:
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Teacher divides students into 3-person jigsaw groups.
Each one of the members of the jigsaw groups will be asked to be an expert in one of the
following topics: Superheroes, Real-life heroes and Mythological Heroes.
The jigsaw groups will break into expertise groups. Each expertise group will be in charge
of one of the reading:
o Text 1: Who are your real-life heroes?
o Text 2: What Did the Ancient Greeks Value in a Hero?
o Text 3: Stan Lee on what is a superhero
Teacher makes sure students have direct access only to their own segment.
Teacher gives students time to read over their segment. In the expertise groups students
are asked to fill the following chart:
Names of heroes
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Characteristics of heroes
Heroic actions.
Teacher gives to these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and
to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group and complete their
chart.
Post-Reading:
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Teacher brings the students back into their jigsaw groups and asks each student to present
her or his segment to the group by using the given chart.
Also, teacher encourages others in the group to ask questions for clarification.
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Teacher gives time to the jigsaw group to prepare a short oral presentation with evidence
about the question “what means to be a hero?” the presentation must contain a general
definition with examples from the different texts.
Students present the answer to the given question
Text 1: Who are your real-life heroes?
Are they sports champions that may have carried a team to an award winning season, or maybe
they're an Olympian who took home the gold?
Is your hero a celebrity who takes home the awards from starring roles in movies or television, or
plays music for thousands of screaming fans in sold out stadiums?
Or maybe your hero is the CEO of a large cooperation who keeps the profit margins high for
investors, a political figure who has successfully served the people for several terms, or a religious
leader who has led many people on their spiritual journeys.
While all these professions certainly do include many people who inspire and lift our expectations
of ourselves and others to a higher plane, giving them the title "Hero" doesn't always apply.
So, what is the difference between a person who is a "Real Hero," and a person who is an icon, an
idol, a mentor, or is setting a good example? And, why is it important to split hairs on this point?
Because, if we're not conscientious about who we honor with the extraordinary title of "Hero,"
then it will come to mean very little.
For example, the word "Awesome." The Northern Lights are awesome; inspiring jaw dropping
'awe' and eye popping 'wonder' at the beauty of the natural spectacle. But, in recent times, the
word awesome has come to be used as slang; as in, "Wow, your new shoes are awesome." While
shoes can be pretty, nice, or even fabulous, shoes can't be considered awesome. Societies'
incessant use of the word 'awesome' has diminished its meaning; thereby, diminishing what really
is awesome.
The same goes for word hero. With diminished use of the word, comes diminished meaning of the
title. We, as a society, soon lose sight of what it really means to be a hero, and real heroes lose the
degree of respect they deserve.
Text 2: What Did the Ancient Greeks Value in a Hero?
Greek heroes possessed superhuman abilities, yet their stories served as mythological reflections
of human potential and human failure. By embodying and overcoming the limitations of humanity,
heroes proved their value to gods and men alike. The gods rewarded heroes with an afterlife in
Elysium or Olympus, while ancient Greeks honored heroes with songs and sacrifice.
Many of the Greek mythic heroes resulted from an illicit union between a human and a deity. Yet
even these heroes were just mortal as human heroes like Jason and Hector. The Olympian gods
had no need to fear monsters like the snake-headed Hydra or the colossal Cetus, but Heracles and
Perseus defeated these monsters knowing that life was temporary and death, inevitable. In this
manner, the Greek heroes faced danger willingly, exhibiting no fear of injury or death.
Superhuman Abilities
For Greek heroes, great strength was often a necessity as much as it was a defining characteristic.
In many cases, humans had already tried, and failed, to accomplish the tasks the Greek heroes
completed. Only by merit of his great strength did Heracles defeat monsters like the Nemean Lion
and the Erymanthian Boar. Likewise, Andromeda's parents preferred to sacrifice their daughter
than to fight against the monstrous Cetus, whereas Perseus slayed the monster with ease.
Unheroic Behavior
Despite their heroic acts, ancient Greek heroes were by no means paragons of virtue. Heracles
killed his wife and child, Achilles desecrated the body of Hector and Perseus turned a man to stone
with the head of a Gorgon. Just as their accomplishments served to highlight the struggle for
meaning in the face of mortality, their vindictiveness and lapses in judgment served as the
mythological embodiment of human error. In the case of Heracles, that error was attributed to
divine meddling, but other heroes committed unspeakable acts as a result of their very human
emotions and attachments.
Impermanent Death
Death was the ultimate manifestation of their humanity, but to the Greeks, heroes could live on in
the in memory, spirit and even in body. Hero cult members would sing "kleos," or songs, for fallen
heroes, as well as offer animals and libations. During these ceremonies, they direct their gaze
downward to the heroic Elysium, an afterlife separate from the purgatorial underworld of ordinary
humans, though some heroes, like Heracles, achieved true immortality. In addition to keeping the
memory of heroes alive through worship, Greeks believed that heroes could return to earth and
speak to worshipers in moments called "epiphanies," indicating heroes were immune to the
practical limitations of death.
Text 3: Stan Lee on what is a super hero
A superhero is a person who does heroic deeds and has the ability to do them in a way that a
normal person couldn’t. So in order to be a superhero, you need a power that is more exceptional
than any power a normal human being could possess, and you need to use that power to
accomplish good deeds. Otherwise, a policeman or a fireman could be considered a superhero. For
instance, a good guy fighting a bad guy could be just a regular police story or detective story or
human-interest story. But if it’s a good guy with a superpower who is fighting a bad guy, it
becomes a superhero story. If the good guy is doing something that a normal human being
couldn’t do, couldn’t accomplish, then I assume he becomes a superhero.
Not surprisingly, then, the first thing I would think of when trying to create a character is, what
superpower will I give him or her? I’ll make somebody who can throw fireballs and fly in the air. I’ll
have somebody who can crawl on walls and shoot webs like a spider. So, automatically, those
characters become superheroes. Of course, if they were evil, they would be supervillains, because
the same rule applies: to be a supervillain, you have to be a villain, but you also have to have a
superpower, just like a superhero has to. The word super is really the key.
The problem with telling superhero stories is that it naturally follows that you need a supervillain.
You need a foe who can make the story interesting, someone who’s at least as powerful as—and
hopefully even more powerful than—the hero, because that makes the story fun. The viewer or
the reader has to think to himself or herself, how is our hero ever going to get out of this? How is
he ever going to beat the villain? We have to keep the reader on the edge of his or her seat. So the
most important thing is to have a supervillain who is equally as colorful as and even more
powerful than the hero apparently is.
I think people are fascinated by superheroes because when we were young we all liked fairy tales,
and fairy tales are stories of people with superpowers, people who are super in some way—giants,
witches, magicians, always people who are bigger than life. Well, as we got older, we outgrew fairy
tales. Most people don’t read fairy tales when they’re grown-ups, but I don’t think we ever
outgrow our love for those kinds of stories, stories of people who are bigger and more powerful
and more colorful than we are. So superhero stories, to me, are like fairy tales for grown-ups. I
don’t know why, but the human condition is such that we love reading about people who can do
things that we can’t do and who have powers that we wish we had.