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Recently I hosted an event in the Graduate Student Lounge to unite the Art Education MAT Program students, as well as Columbia College Chicago’s various other Graduate Programs.

The Movie: Waiting for Superman

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Waiting for “Superman” is a 2010 documentary film from director Davis Guggenheim and producer Lesley Chilcott. The film analyzes the failures of American public education by following several students through the educational system, hoping to be selected in a lottery for acceptance into charter schools.

The Game: Nouns
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Nouns is a great game to play, maybe as a first week activity in the Art Education setting, that I learned from my younger sister.

How to Play Nouns: The game of Nouns starts with dividing into two teams, and every player has three pieces of paper and a writing utensil (small and recycled paper is best).  On each piece of paper, the player writes a person, place, and thing; one of each type of noun on each piece of paper. Next, all the players fold their pieces of paper twice and place them inside a bowl.

Once everyone has put their nouns in the bowl, the game is ready to begin. The game of Nouns is played in three rounds. The objective of each round is to have your team guess as many of the nouns, switching the player each time, all within one minute (so some kind of timer is needed).

Round 1: The players can describe what is on the piece of paper with 3 WORDS. After the bowl is empty each team counts how many they got right and then puts them back into the bowl. This is where the game becomes a memory game in the following rounds.

Round 2: Uses the same nouns as Round 1, but the players describe each noun with 1 WORD. Then count again and place in bowl for final round.

Round 3: In the final round the players then act out like charades (without talking) the noun.