For this activity I told them they must first join an alliance: Royal, White, Turquoise, or Pink. When they choose an alliance they must wear that colored ribbon on them at all times and can try to convince their friends (as long as they are one of my students) to join their alliance. The team at the end of the week that has the most members wins.
Also, they can promote their alliance by hanging posters, flags, shirts, really anything that would promote their alliance. For every poster or "promotion" they received a point. The team with the most points at the end of the week wins.
The third category was a hunt and find game. I made these signs that were to be "colonies" and placed 30 of them around the school. Some were very out in the open while others were very hard to find. I enlisted some upper classmen to help me hang the posters because they had started getting curious about what I was doing. To claim a colony each team must have at least three of their members sign the poster. When the 3rd person from one alliance signs the sheet they are to take it off the wall and bring it to me. The team at the end of the week with the most colonies wins.
Lastly, I told them there was another category but the rules of that one will remain a mystery for a little bit.
So off these students went. Between every class they hunted for colonies and rallied their friends to join their alliance. I had students come to my class that already had the ribbon in their hand and wasn't sure what it even for. Then the students began asking me if it would count if they could recruit people not in my class (upper classmen, kids in different history classes, etc.). They also started asking if they could sabotage other teams posters by taking them off the walls. They were so into it!
The second to the last day I finally gave my lecture on the MAIN causes of World War I - Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism. While I was teaching I was able to use examples of their activities. And then when I got to the spark (assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand) I was able to put into terms what would happen if one student from one alliance punched another one right in the hallway? Generally the answers were a bunch of worked up students ready to start a brawl. There were a few here and there of "Oh Mrs. Ham, we'd leave because you would be pulling ears hahah" but overall the students were able to inject themselves into the lesson a million times better.
This is when I told them the last part to the game - militarism. They had about 18 hours (until 1st period the next day) to give me as much scrap paper as they could find. The team with the biggest pile would win. I made them give it to me in piles because they were getting really into it and I feared (slightly) a paper ball fight in the cafeteria. This will serve as "bullets" when we do trench warfare.
At the end of the week I gave them the results. Each team that won one of the four categories got to draw out of my "treasure box". This is a box that has free homework passes, tardy pass, extra day for homework, redo pass for homework, etc. (Here is the link from the buyers on Teachers Pay Teachers https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Classroom-Incentive-Coupons-Middle-Grades-350963) --> They are really awesome coupons and my 9th graders eat them up! The final results were then tallied and the team the won the most categories got their lowest daily grade replaced with a 100. I also gave all of my students a 100 for participating so the teams that didn't win anything didn't completely check out from the rest of the unit.
Once the competition was over, I told the students they still had to sit with their alliances in class until we were done with World War I. The colors of the alliances turned into countries (White to Germany, Royal to Great Britain, Turquoise to France, and Pink to Russia). Next major assignment we will be working on is journal/diary assignment and they will have to write from the perspective of someone in the country they are in - either a soldier, citizen, or nurse.
Overall, this was a FANTASTIC game that worked out so much better than I thought! I even had a few of my students tell me they were able to understand it so much better because of the game. The great thing is by the time the lecture rolled around they had already done some of the things (in smaller terms) that they were hearing about. I can't wait to fix the few issues (assign all four colors to people in your first period to get it started) and find ways to make it better!
Until time time!
Mrs. Ham
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