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The Five
Pillars
A Group Activity
Religion: Islam
Purpose: to
explore, through discussion, practical concerns related to following the
Five Pillars of Islam within American culture Cognitive
Skills: comprehension, application
Learning Styles: active,
sensing
Intelligences: interpersonal
Use: in
classroom For: small groups Estimated
time: 15 - 20 minutes (not including preliminary teacher presentation) Materials
needed: none Note:
This activity uses "jigsaw" grouping, wherein students work
together in one group and then groups are shuffled so all students benefit
from the work done by all groups. The
Activity:
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Teacher begins
by introducing the five pillars of Islam (through lecture, video, and
other resources)
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Divide class
into five groups. Assign each group a different one of the five
pillars and task the groups to discuss any difficulties they can think
of that might face a Muslim living in a non-Muslim country (like ours)
when trying to maintain practice of the pillar of faith on which
they've been asked to focus. How might they envision these
difficulties being overcome? Give approximately 10 minutes for this.
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Regroup the
students so that each new
group has a representative from the original groups (this is best done
by counting off, all one's are in one group, all two's in another, all
three's in a third group).
In this second
grouping, each student is an "expert" on the pillar they were focused on in the first group.
In the case of an
odd numbering, some groups may have more than one student from the
first grouping. Just make sure that in the second set of groups, each
group has at least one person from each of the first groups so that
all five pillars are represented.
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Have students in
the second grouping go around and share some of the problems and
solutions they discussed in their first group. To make sure all
pillars are discussed in this second group, have each student share
just one problem and solution in turn. As time permits, they can go
around again to share additional observations from their first group.
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Closure/debrief:
regroup class and discuss any problems for which they could not think
of a solution. Discuss any pillars that they did not feel were
problematic and suggest some ways it might be problematic. Have
students respond to these suggestions with possible solutions.
Alternative
possibilities: any multifaceted topic can be divided amongst groups of
students to discuss different parts in this "jigsaw" fashion. A topic
such as this that asks students to imagine how others might live or modify their
life under certain conditions might arise in a world cultures class. A history
class might tackle discussion of how aspects of life in the past relate to life
in the present.
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