It's when you check to see what your students are learning so you can adjust teaching strategies and methods - Formative Assessment!
Looking through the cupboards of my mentor teacher's classroom I came across two old Catchphrase games. The point of the game is to get people to guess the word you've read from the display panel, without using the words or saying the phrase and simply by describing it.
Unlike its digital counterpart, this version uses paper cards that can be interchanged. Lightbulb - I could create my own cards and have students play with vocabulary from our unit as well as historic figures, groups, events, ideas, locations and phrases!
I got to work laying out my own cards in Canva and making lists of words to use. For our Civil Rights unit, when I first introduced the game to my students, I ended up making 3 different cards.
First I had students describe words that I imagined them coming across as they read about the era and ones that might not be a part of their common vernacular, such as ideology, oppression, unconstitutional, etc. Before playing, students had seen the list of words and provided a definition for one to create a class-sourced glossary.
The following class, students were investigating current issues regarding race and equity, so I had a card ready for people who finished early and would need something to keep busy with. This card had phrases like, "I can't breathe," and words like overturn and gerrymandering.
Finally, I had a Civil Rights card for students to play with as we entered into the time-period specific content that included items like poll tax, Freedom Summer and 1965.
Part of the summative assessment for the unit will be a collaborative game of Jeopardy, so I made sure to include on the cards all of the Jeopardy questions.
As we move through the unit, students have the opportunity to recognize their own knowledge base when they are attempting to describe words from the card, and as they listen to others guessing around them.
As their teacher, I can step in to model some of the lesser-known or more difficult-to-describe items AND I can observe them playing and get a feel for how many words and phrases are being skipped and which ones my students really understand well.
This is such a great back pocket activity to pull out for students who finish early or an activity to help increase the energy level and kickstart my morning class. My students have been loving it and are always excited when I pull out a new card to play with.
Happy learning!
