“And the Winner is…….” Award Show

Last year after the BET Awards, my kids came to school excited about what had transpired. They talked about the performances, the clothes, and of course the awards. Then an INGENIOUS idea hit me. Why not create an award show activity in my room for review?!

 

So this is how it works. This activity is best used at the end of a unit for review. It can also be used during the lesson for more motivated students. Anywho, after studying a unit with several different concepts (in history I use it during a unit where we studied several different people), as a class, develop a list of the important people in the unit

• Tell them the class is hosting an awards show (Grammys, BET, MTV, Hip Hop, Country Music Awards, People’s Choice, etc.- choose the one that would most interest YOUR students). 
•  Next, hand out this Rank Order Chart. Have each student vote on which person (or concept) is the most important/relevant/or had the greatest impact 
• Take the sheets up and have one student tally the votes. 
• While the votes are being tallied, divide the class into collaborative groups of 3-4 students. Allow each group to pick one person from the list (for less independent classes you might have to assign a person to each group)
• Have each group come up with 5-7 reasons (for the textbook, homework, supplementary materials, etc.) why there person should win the award for most relevant. 
•   Each group should also pick one student from their group that will play the person their groups choose. The group will help that student write an acceptance speech if he/she wins. The speech should include actual things that person might say and/or people he or she would actually thank 
• After approximately 15-20 minutes, have students hand in their handout with the reasons and begin the awards show. The teacher can play the host or you can allow the student who tallied the votes to be the host. Either way, announce the nominees in each category and read 1-3 of the reasons from the list. After all the nominees are announced, announce the winner. Allow the student who chose to portray the winner to come to the podium and give an acceptance speech as if they actually were that person.

 

Variation

You can develop other categories (most innovative, most popular, etc.) and announce the other people as winners. This time when announcing nominees, give 1-3 DIFFERENT reasons from their respective lists. This allows the class to review ALL of the people studied. At the end, a short assessment could be give (3-2-1 assignment, teacher-prepared multiple choice questions, etc) to ensure students were paying attention and retained knowledge needed for the test. 

Setting the Scene

To be even MORE creative and set the scene (and to encourage my students to get into it), I purchased a small trophy (approximately $2.50 from Target) and created a red carpet (use extra red butcher paper). You can even film it (a digital camera or smart phone) and show the BEST ones for review before the test OR include on your class website or blog. Just make sure to have the proper documentation (some schools or districts have funny rules about how you can video tape your students and why. My students get a KICK out of seeing themselves on video or on my website or blog. In the future I would like to have one of the red carpet backgrounds (the ones celebrities take pictures on) and a microphone (even if it doesn’t work) to make it more fun.

Application for Reading- Pick several characters from a reading selection as the nominees. Create categories such as who had the most impact on the story, who was the best hero, or who was their favorite character.

Application for Language Arts- Pick several types of words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.) as nominees. Create categories such as sentence changer, most important, or best describer.

Application for Science-Pick several types of chemicals as nominees. Create categories such as most powerful, most dangerous, and most useful.

Application for Math- Pick several types of numbers (positive, negative, integers, whole numbers, etc.). Create categories such as easiest to multiply, hardest to solve, most relevant.

Application to Social Studies- Pick several events in a unit (battles, laws, people). Create categories such as which had the biggest historical impact, most powerful, most important.

SPED Accommodations- Start the SPED students off with at least one example already filled in on each sheet. Allow them to give fewer reasons and give them pages numbers as hints to where to find reasons.