Agon (Competition)

A series of activities for looking at wealth inequality in the US and globally.

Got this idea from the video The Story of Solutions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkRvc-sOKk

When scoring results in any game, consider giving points based on different criteria -- e.g. crazy points to encourage creativity, heart points to encourage compassion, laughter points, controversy points, etc.

Learned this from students in my Critical Reading course. They used PPT to run the game.

Jokers take quotes from famous people (thematic quotes are best), scramble the words and write them on the board (or ppt). In teams, players compete to re-write the sentences, one word at a time, in correct order. There is a strict time limit of 2 minutes.

As in the game show, players have to fill in the missing letters from a phrase or sentence, competing against each other or against the joker.

Set up games such that the jokers are competing against the players. If the jokers win, the players have to do a task, like sing a song, or dance. If the players win, they choose the penalty.

This game comes from Tom Wujec. See his very useful detailed instructions and TED talk. http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Instructions.html

For my purposes, the project serves as an experiment in which people can practice cooperative learning, work, and innovation.

Prep the materials ahead of time.
For each group:

Use the haka form to practice the body language of other emotions and attitudes: instead of intimidation, how about love, shame, flattery...?

Use it with language, as a kind of competition -- each side having its players say something in English, different for each player, showing off their language skill and clever ideas.

Use it with sounds, each side taking turns making one sound or word, like my name "Matt." The leaders can coach their teams and tell them which word is next.

Idea for an activity:

Take a text, in another language, that you love (poem, song, whatever).

Use Google translate to translate it to English.

If the result is sufficiently strange, copy it, reduce it, and perform it like a poem at a poetry slam.

If the result is too normal, try translating the translated version into a different language, then from that language into English, or into another language -- repeat until you have freed the words from the original text.

The game Loud & Proud is designed to played as a rapid-fire competitive matching game. http://store.toolboxfored.org/loud-proud/

It can also be played:

• As prompts or seeds for making speeches or sermons. One card: if you draw "Organic food is...", you have to improvise a speech on organic food (for or against, or other). Two cards (matching symbols): if you draw "Corporation" and "A Democracy" you have to improvise a speech that relates the two concepts.