For items relating to popular education for union democracy, including blog entries, etc.

Favorite/Least Favorite

A simple activity: ask each person to think of her/his favorite and least favorite [word, person, place, object, action, body part(?), letter, number...whatever] and share them with a partner, explaining her choice.

The sharing can be with just one person (quick), with several people in a round-robin format, with the whole group.

The sharing could be done in spoken or written form, could be drawn or pantomimed.

Change the story

A variation on the "Mad Libs" game.

Joker (or each participant) chooses a short text: a news item, an encyclopedia entry, a passage from a text book, a political speech, a poem, etc. S/he then removes key words or phrases, leaving blanks and a hint as to what type of word or phrase is missing (verb, noun, etc.).

Unlike the original game:

  • Players have the text in their hands, so they know what it is about.

Thinking out loud (for someone else)

I'm sure this has been done before, but it occurred to me as well. (It's like the Kani Club activity "Words from the Heart" where the players add side commentary, sharing their true feelings out loud as if only the audience could hear them.)

Four people improvisation game.

Two people are the players, the other two are their shadows.

The two people meet each other for the first time. (The audience can choose a place beforehand.) They improvise a conversation, starting with a greeting.

Our better (worse) selves

This is an idea for an improvisational variation on the Love, Hate, Need activity.

Once people have identified what they Love, Hate, Need, Have, Want, Fear, and Hope, the joker hands out three cards on which are written one of the categories (love, hate, etc) to random players.

The players think for a moment, then must improvise a short (2minute or so) scene in which they act out the thing they (love, hate, need...), interacting with the others on that basis.

Benshi narrators

In the old days, silent films were often shown with music and a voice-over provided by live players. In Japan, the narrators were called benshi. (Akira Kurosawa's brother was a benshi, a leader of the benshi union until talkies came in and he committed suicide.)

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