Material For Tonight

We chose 9 of the authors we read this semester, representing each section of the course from prologue to Act III, and also 22 key terms from readings, serendip postings and class discussion. We put each one of the items onto  individual notecards. Without looking each member of the class and the professors took one card and held it up to their forehead. The group was then split up into 4 groups and each individual took turns asking 5 yes or no questions to try to guess which concept or author was written on their notecard.

We walked around visiting the groups and at times giving some hints. The authors seemed to be easier to guess than the concepts although as Shlomo aptly pointed out the question "Am I a male or a female?" had a "complicated" answer for many of the authors. After a few minutes we reconvened and asked the group what it felt like both to be unsure of your identity and also once your identity was discovered. Kaye let us know that she felt stupid, and that was definitely not an intended consequence!

We hoped that this activity would achieve a few goals:

a) Work as a review to think about the many new concepts we have learned throughout this course and/or the new meanings/perspectives on words/terms we already knew

b) Provide a space for critical thinking about how we categorize in our heads both concepts and authors. For example, were we prone to trying to pin down the context within the class "was it in the biology section?" or rather attempting to get at characteristics of the word itself like "is it a noun?"

c) Ask people to step outside their comfort zone and to not know their identity. We asked people to rely on others and simple yes or no questions in order to find out the answer.

d) Be a fun activity!