Job Discussion Forums

[lumberjackej]

I teach 3 literature classes. We read stories like 'The Emperor's New Clothes', some fairy tales, and some short stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My students work hard and I want to give them a break, add a little spice and variety so they're not just reading texts all the time in my class.

Any pertinent, relevent games that I could throw in? I'd like to have them make the stories into plays or dialogues...any other ideas?

Thx

EJ

[Austrian]

The question is what's the timeframe for these breaks you are talking about? If it's just some 10-25 minutes at the end of a class, I've noticed they like competitions. Divide them into groups, give these groups names from the text - if it was Romeo and Juliet I'd call them Capulets and M... How many different scenes can they remember, can they describe the characters, do they remember any lines, which group can build the longest and correct sentence,which words unique to the text can they remember, etc., etc.

If you are talking about more time, can they recreate the story with a different, unusual ending? Can they transfer the text, play, etc. to a Chinese setting with Chinese names and Chinese customs. What happened if one fairy tale character got into another fairy tale.

Of course these might be some silly ideas from a newbie and I don't know how much creativity you can demand from your students and how good their language skills for such things would be, but I guess they should be pretty good if you teach them literature?

Maybe some others have more ideas ...

Good luck

[hesterprynne]

I like Austrian's ideas! Since you are thinking theater, why don't you do a search for improv games- improvisational theater games used for actors to warm up before rehearsals or performances, which are an art form in their own right. Many can be adapted for scenes you want to talk about.
If you just have a couple of minutes, you could play a fun trivia game with questions from the text, such as true/false, odd or even, or pick your points. These are a fun way to do tricky questions! In pick your points you have a pre-printed sheet with a grid of various random point values. It could be A to G across the top, and 1 to 8 going down the side. The competing student calls out A1, for example- the first on the grid. If that is 40 points, he can win or lose 40 points for the right answer to your next question. For odd or even, both teams begin with 100,000 dollars. The competing student must answer a question. Then the student must "bet" anywhere from 1000 to all of his team's dollars. Then he must call out odd or even. Then you put your hand behind your back and the student puts his hand behind his back. You "draw", like in rock-paper-scissors. But what you are coming out with is a number of fingers. If he has called odd, but you show two fingers and he shows two fingers, that is four fingers, which is even, he loses as many "dollars" as he has bet. True or false------ write true, draw a vertical line, write false on the other side. Call out questions, the competing student from each team must race with the other team's student to touch the correct side of the line. You could give them colored chalk or magnets if you have a whiteboard. They adore this! I just thought of a version of my neighborhood map game which you could use!!! If you are doing Romeo and Juliet, draw the various places where the action takes place- outside her window, at the apothecary's, in the street, wherever. Make it into a map. Call out "where they meet" or "where they die" and the competing students must run to touch the corresponding places. Not everything you do needs to be spoken. There are all kinds of visual representations of stories which you can ask them to draw. You could insist that their collaboration be in English. You could ask them to make lists of props needed for particular scenes.

[lumberjackej]

Mr. Austrian and Mr. Hester, you must be awesome teachers with some really great ideas. Thank you.

Yeah, the competition idea usually works pretty well. Last week I organized a debate around the question 'Does Technology Make People Happier?' and some of the responses were pretty thoughtful. Funny too...one student listed, as a con of technology, 'more people can jump out of tall buildings', which I guess is the fashionable method of suicide here. To which, I replied, 'but people in the ancient times could jump off of mountains too!'. Then the student said that it was not very conveinient to hike all the way up a mountain just to jump off it. To which I replied, 'but you can also climb up a tall tree and jump off!'. He then pointed out that there are no trees in our region tall enough to facilitate the act of suicide. He won the argument...this time.

Hey, whatever gets them talking and arguing. Good times.

EJ

[Austrian]

Xie xie for the "awesome"

[clarrie]

... but never, ever, never, call them games! Chinese students do not like to play games, so refer to any 'fun' interludes as learning activities!