Games in the English Class

Abstract

AFTER attending several media workshops which were sponsored by my county and state audiovisual departments, I returned to my classroom enthusiastic and anxious to revitalize my seventhgrade English program. I was especially excited by many of the games which the workshop speakers had created and presented to the workshop participants. As an English teacher who believes that various strategies are necessary to motivate the uninterested student, I have used games with great success in Grades 7 through 12. These were games which I had discovered and/or adapted and imposed on the students because I felt that the games had value as catalysts. But then I decided to tap their creative and resourceful minds and to encourage them to develop some games related to the language arts. Since my students had been working in small groups of five or six, this plan was not difficult to implement. I explained that a group would have five class days in which to produce a game. At the end of the week the group was to present and explain the game to the class; then the game would be added to our class game cabinet so that it would be available to all students.