Jenga

Jenga came to class this Friday. The students in my class are always expecting something interesting on Friday. They have been conditioned to reward movies on Friday. There is no such thing as a reward movie in my class.. Boy that sounds harsh. I use movies to teach and reinforce literary ideas. It is the non reader or the poor reader's connection to things like climax, flashback, flashforward, character building, plot prediction, and build up.

Today instead of the worm. A huge worm drawn upon the board,where I play, million dollar question, there was the Jenga set. Jenga is a game with tiny cedar planks. They are arranged in uniform groups of three, crosswise in every layer to the one below it.

I would ask a question, sometimes of general information. Such as which town is due north of us about 40 miles away that starts with S and is not Sacramento. This was very difficult for my students to reconcile. The answer is Stockton. It could be a situational question. Such as: You car was backup into by another car. Where do you get it fixed? One answer was .. insurance. The person fixing your car is an auto body repair person.

A correct answer allowed them to remove a plank from the pile. The main idea is to remove the plank without the other planks falling.

The main problem with jenga and traveling from class to class, is that it has to be boxed up and absolutely square to fit into the box before it can be moved. This takes a little time. It did get the students who just want to sleep through class this time of the year up and participating.

Have a great weekend
Pat