SUBMITTED BY: Carlee Miller / Mark Best / Pierre Dupuy    EDITED BY: まだ

Prized Possessions

GRAMMAR: Reduced Relative Clause     EXAMPLE: This is a book (that) I bought in the United States.     DATE ADDED: Mar 24, 2010 

ÒÓ    èéêë    30-40 min.   4 Votes: 4 Stars If you're going to give this activity a low-rating, please post a useful comment to help make it better. SearchJHSActivity

Materials Needed:

• PrizedPossessions attachments:
• Carlee's: One for each student. There are two types of worksheets. The second one is to incorporate betting into the activity.
• Mark's: Update to original worksheet.
• Peirre's
• Five things the students need: eraser, textbook, notebook, pen, pencil, sissors, etc.

Detailed Explanation:

1. Students choose five things they currently have with them to write about.
2. Using the worksheet provided, students write one sentence about each of their objects.
3. After finishing writing the sentences, the students get into small groups of 2-4 students and do a show-n-tell of their five objects.

Variations:

• Attached is also an alternate version of this activity that involves betting. When students create their sentences, they can write true/false false sentences. The other students in their group have to guess whether a statement is true/false and make a wager.
• The betting variation adds some time to the activity, but also some excitement.
• Pierre's Version:
• My original idea was to bring in 40 trinkets of mine from home, for example, 5 old video game cases, magazines etc.
• Then, I put the students into lunch groups and then give out X number of items per table, enough so each person has at least 1 item.
• As for the writing practice, students must make 5 sentences about the items on their table using 5 different verbs.
• After everyone is finished, each student will take an item and talk about their item with another student from a different lunch group. After they ask and answer about the item, they will return to their groups with new items and then write 5 new sentences. You might have them talk and exchange 2 or 3 times.

Teaching Suggestions:

• To introduce the activity and show how it is done, I showed the students five of my own objects that I had formulated sentences for and showed them to the class while reading my sentences. Students had to guess if the statement was true or false. You can try to make it interesting by bringing in objects that you got/found in an unbelievable way.
• If you find any gaps or mistakes with this activity, or any way it can be improved upon, please leave a comment so that it can be more useful in the future. A negative rating without feedback makes it hard to understand where the activity can be improved. Thanks in advance!

Comments:

• (Nov 10, 2011) MC said: The betting variation went alright in my third year JHS classes. When my JTE and I tried it out with the first class, the students took way too long cutting up their money (most didn't have scissors) and some of the more obnoxious students made their false sentences really obvious ("This ALT was made by [JTE's name]" -_-). The JTE ended up cutting up the slips of money for the next class, which definitely saved time, but surprisingly, a lot of the kids who usually get into the English class activities didn't seemed too thrilled about this one. Maybe they were hestiant about the aspect of betting, even with fake money, haha.
• (Oct 26, 2011) Carlee Miller said: @Mark - THanks for the update worksheet! I'll be using it in my class tomorrow. I'm total crap at putting those sorts of things together (I somehow always get a block of text that looks boring...), so I appreciate the update!
• (Sept 18, 2011) Brian said: This seems like a good activity, and the betting aspect does feel like it would help to keep the lesson interesting. The betting as described dosen't make a lot of sense to me though; from reading the worksheet and description I couldn't figure out what students gain from wagering. They lose their bet if they are wrong... but they just don't lose their bet if they are right? Why would they bet more than $1 at a time? I'm sure if I give it some thought I can come up with an easy change and use that in class (I plan on using this), but I thought I'd drop in a comment explaining my confusion.
• (Nov 25, 2010) Englipedia said: @Mark, Your attachment has been added.
• (Oct 4, 2010) Mark said: Hi, Nice simple game :-)
  I've made another version of the 'betting sheet' which includes 'cut out money' to bet with and clarifies your instructions by bulleting them in a multi-level list (and changed the fonts - I have a totally irrational prejudice against Comic Sans :D)
  I'll mail it to the boss now...