Puzzling Our Way Through a Longish Article

I assigned Nicolas Carr's essay, "Is Google Making Us Stupid"(published in The Atlantic in 2008) to my English 50 class this semester. The article is slightly more advanced than ones I usually assign to this level (this is a non-transfer level introductory English composition class), so I designed a "Jigsaw" approach, in which five groups of four or five students were given one section to read, analyze, and outline. Groups then were tasked to create a poster-sized outline (illustrated) and present their outlines to the rest of the class, one section at a time. Gradually, the "puzzle pieces" came together to present a completed whole.

Here are the posters from one of my two sections of English 50 (Section III fell off the wall--I'll add that one later).

A follow up assignment (write a formal summary of their individual sections) came next. When we get together next week, I'll present them with a complete summary of the entire article which I wrote and ask them to identify the sections separately and note how they flow together into a seamless whole.

I learned this Jigsaw method during the TESL Certificate Program that I completed this summer at Cal State University San Marcos and decided I'd test it out on my students this semester. The idea behind the method is that a longer, more complex piece of writing that can seem daunting at first seems less so when tackled in smaller segments. For students who feel overwhelmed by "large blocks of uninterrupted text" (referring to The Onion's parody), this is a pretty nifty exercise.

As for the Carr article itself, it is pretty fascinating. He's written a book on the subject, as well, called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Personally, I think he's onto something, and I've been trying to push back. More on that later.

Meanwhile, here's my summary and outline.