{"id":5750,"date":"2016-10-05T14:00:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/fctl\/?p=5750"},"modified":"2019-06-05T20:01:12","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T20:01:12","slug":"playing-jeopardy-in-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/2016\/10\/05\/playing-jeopardy-in-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing Jeopardy in the Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Charles Wukasch<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ever popular TV quiz program Jeopardy<\/em> can provide an enjoyable way of preparing for the final exam. \u00a0Students can get ready for the exam while at the same time having some fun. \u00a0Some years ago, when teaching one of the second-year literature classes (American, British, World), it occurred to me that I could combine popular culture and classroom methodology.<\/p>\n

I imagine everyone is familiar with the general rules of\u00a0Jeopardy.<\/em> In addition to\u00a0contestants, I ask for a volunteer to keep score.\u00a0 Nobody is required to take part, but I drop a strong hint that\u00a0being a contestant or score-keeper\u00a0will help the students’ participation grade.\u00a0 One might think that there would be too many contestants, but I’ve never had that problem.\u00a0 I guess most students are shy about putting their knowledge (or lack thereof) on display in front of their peers.\u00a0 There’s no need to limit the number to three as in the real game.\u00a0 Also, I do away with the second round, although I do include a couple of Daily Doubles in my questions.\u00a0 In the actual game, there are six categories, but I\u00a0feel free to\u00a0have more than that.\u00a0There\u00a0is also a Final Jeopardy question.<\/p>\n

Let me give an actual example, this from my fall 2015 American Literature I class.\u00a0 First, I’d like to mention something humorous.\u00a0 In my Composition I classes, when discussing the literary aim of the aims and modes of writing,\u00a0I give the students a number of literary terms.\u00a0 Many of these terms\u00a0begin with the letter A, e.g.,\u00a0alliteration<\/em>,\u00a0assonance\u00a0<\/em>,\u00a0analogy\u00a0<\/em>,anachronism<\/em>\u00a0, etc.\u00a0\u00a0Once late in the semester, I was reviewing some of these terms.\u00a0 I asked\u00a0one of the students\u00a0“what do we call the following (I forget the specific example)?”\u00a0\u00a0 This student, someone not only intelligent but witty, answered “I can’t remember, but it’s one of those ‘A’- words.”\u00a0 I loved it!<\/p>\n

But on to an example of an actual game:\u00a0 I came up with seven categories:\u00a0 Theology, Those Darn “A”-Words, Edgar Allan Poe, Literary History and Schools of Analysis, Hawthorne and Irving, Poetical Terms, and “Grab Bag” (i.e., miscellaneous information).\u00a0 Each category had five questions ranging between $100 and $500 and increasing in difficulty.\u00a0 \u00a0I had two Daily Doubles hidden among the questions.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples:<\/p>\n

\"jeopardy<\/p>\n

Those Darn “A”-Words for $400:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a western film, if the sheriff of one county sent an e-mail to the sheriff of another county warning him that the bad guys were on their way, this would be an example of which \u201ca-word\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (The answer is\u00a0anachronism<\/em>, i.e., something out of keeping with a given time period.)<\/p>\n

\"jeopardy<\/a><\/p>\n

Edgar Allan Poe for $500<\/strong> (one of the two DAILY DOUBLES):<\/p>\n

In the famous short story \u201cThe Cask of Amontillado,\u201d who is the minor character who supposedly can\u2019t tell an amontillado from a sherry?<\/p>\n

(The answer is Luchresi.)<\/p>\n

\"jeopardy<\/a><\/p>\n

“Grab Bag” for $300:<\/strong><\/p>\n

If one wanted to learn some moral lessons in couplet form, s\/he would do well to read this short work.\u00a0 (The answer is “The New England Primer.”)<\/p>\n

When all the questions were exhausted, the FINAL JEOPARDY question was “Edgar Allan Poe, who is considered the father of the detective story, created this detective.” The answer is “who was Dupin?”<\/p>\n

Jeopardy lends itself well to a literature class, but I imagine many if not most\u00a0disciplines could come up with variants on the game.\u00a0 Now whether this would be true in an “exact” science like mathematics, that I don’t know.\u00a0 But in my literature classes, it’s certainly a fun way to wind down the semester and prepare the students for some of the questions on the final exam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Charles Wukasch<\/strong>
\n
\nThe ever popular TV quiz program Jeopardy<\/em> can provide an enjoyable way of preparing for the final exam. Students can get ready for the exam while at the same time having some fun. Some years ago, when teaching one of the second-year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-written-by-faculty"],"acf":{"carousel_content":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}