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Permalink Reply by Robert Rozema on March 2, 2011 at 10:48am

Since we've reached our March 1 deadline, I thought I would begin our discussion of this article.  Full disclosure: Brian White is a colleague of mine and we have spoken a few times of this "Trading Spaces" game. In any case, I picked this article because it is both grounded in research (on the effectiveness of writing before reading) and is extremely practical. So practical, in fact, that I began to think of other commonly taught works that might lend themselves to this kind of game. Any text that features characters involved in moral and material negotiations would work, but I thought of a few specific examples to get us going.

 

Lord of the Flies is the first novel that came to mind.  In this case, the original options on the card might be modified to reflect the dilema the boys find themselves in.  Items could include "Keeping signal fire lit," "finding food," "being helpful to others," or "staying alive."  These kinds of choices might help students identify with the main characters.

 

I've also had The Hunger Games on my mind these days. Inside the arena, Katniss is confronted with many moral dilemmas, and I think the original options on the card could reflect these tough choices. The central dilemma is whether or not Katniss can kill others in order to survive, so the items on the cards get at this. If you haven't read this young adult series, you might take a look at the fan trailer below:

 

Okay--I'm going to turn it over to you now. Feel free to take this discussion in any direction you'd like.