IMPROVING ENGLISH SKILL BY PLAYING SCRABBLE
do you like playing scrabble???
wht's intersting of it??
Scrabble is a
word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in
crossword fashion and must appear in a standard
dictionary. Official reference works (e.g. The
Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) provide a list of permissible words. The
Collins Scrabble checker can also be used to check if a word is allowed.
[1] The name Scrabble is a
trademark of
Hasbro, Inc. in the
United States and
Canada. Elsewhere, Scrabble is trademarked by
Mattel. The game is sold in 121 countries; there are 29 different language versions. One hundred and fifty million sets have been sold worldwide, and sets are found in roughly one-third of American homes.
In 1938, architect
Alfred Mosher Butts created the game as a variation on an earlier word game he invented called
Lexiko. The two games had the same set of letter tiles, whose distributions and point values Butts worked out meticulously performing a
frequency analysis of letters from various sources including
The New York Times. The new game, which he called "Criss-Crosswords," added the 15-by-15 game board and the crossword-style game play. He manufactured a few sets himself, but was not successful in selling the game to any major game manufacturers of the day.
[5]In 1948, James Brunot,
[6] a resident of
Newtown, Connecticut – and one of the few owners of the original Criss-Crosswords game – bought the rights to manufacture the game in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit sold. Though he left most of the game (including the distribution of letters) unchanged, Brunot slightly rearranged the "premium" squares of the board and simplified the rules; he also changed the name of the game to "Scrabble," a real word which means "to scratch frantically." In 1949, Brunot and his family made sets in a converted former schoolhouse in
Dodgingtown, a section of Newtown. They made 2,400 sets that year, but lost money.
[7] According to legend, Scrabble's big break came in 1952 when Jack Straus, president of
Macy's, played the game on vacation. Upon returning from vacation, he was surprised to find that his store did not carry the game. He placed a large order and within a year, "everyone had to have one."
[8] In 1952, unable to meet demand himself, Brunot sold manufacturing rights to Long Island-based
Selchow and Righter (one of the manufacturers who, like
Parker Brothers and
Milton Bradley Company, had previously rejected the game). Selchow & Righter bought the trademark to the game in 1972.
[9] JW Spears began selling the game in
Australia and the
UK on January 19, 1955. The company is now a subsidiary of
Mattel, Inc.
[5] In 1986, Selchow and Righter sold the game to
Coleco, who soon after went bankrupt. The company's assets, including Scrabble and
Parcheesi, were purchased by
Hasbro.
[9]In 1984, Scrabble was turned into a daytime
game show on
NBC. Scrabble ran from July 1984 to March 1990, with a second run from January to June 1993. The show was hosted by
Chuck Woolery. The tagline of the show in promo broadcasts was, "Every man dies; not every man truly Scrabbles." Scrabble is slated for a new television adaptation in 2011, and is expected to air on "The Hub" cable channel, which is a is a joint venture of Discovery Communications, Inc. and Hasbro.
There's tension. There's competition. There's teamwork. There's even math, and yes, there's plenty of spelling.
Welcome to Scrabble clubs, an after-school activity growing in popularity with educators and students. Principals and teachers like that playing Scrabble builds spelling, vocabulary, and social skills, and can give students a chance to compete against other schools. And they love that students are learning without realizing it.
"We have a wide variety of kids who come to the club, even those who are not strong spellers," said Alison Charbeneau, an English teacher at
Belmont Middle School in Belmont, New Hampshire.
"It's a good way to work on strategy, teamwork, and vocabulary," added Charbeneau, who is the school's Scrabble Club advisor.
A GAME FOR ALL
About 1 million students in 20,000 U.S. schools are playing in Scrabble clubs as part of the
School SCRABBLE program, which began in 1991.
"It covers so many subjects," said Tara Rogers, director of communications and educational programs for the School SCRABBLE program. "Teachers can use it for math, spatial relations, spelling, and vocabulary."
The School SCRABBLE program also sponsors a national tournament for school Scrabble clubs, which is held in Boston in April. The top two teams from each state compete.
Currently, there are between 400 and 500 Scrabble Clubs in the U.S., and many more students playing informally, said John D. Williams Jr., executive director of the
National Scrabble Association, which runs the School SCRABBLE program.
"You haven't lived until you've seen two 12-year-old boys fight over a dictionary."
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"We've found it works best with fifth through eighth graders, and we encourage them to work in teams," Williams told Education World. "We also encourage them to play with timers so the game moves faster and there is more scoring."The game appeals to youngsters because most students are able to play and it can be very competitive, Williams noted. "You can have a few good moves and do well in the game," he said. "You haven't lived until you've seen two 12-year-old boys fight over a dictionary."
SPELL-BINDING ACTION
The School SCRABBLE program also provides teachers with lesson plans and curriculum guidelines to help them tie-in Scrabble with national standards, said Williams.
"We hear a lot of anecdotal stuff from teachers who say that they've seen playing Scrabble improve students' spelling, teamwork, and interest in reading," according to Williams.
Several teachers told Education World that their after-school clubs often draw a range of students.
"This club provides a place for students who don't participate on sports teams, or orchestra, or other larger groups," said Ginny Paisie, a language arts teacher at
Davis Drive Middle School in Cary, North Carolina. "For the past six years that we've met, we usually have anywhere from eight to 12 kids come for an hour after school. There is a good mixture of grade levels."
Students at Paisie's school enjoy playing in teams. "I find that two heads are definitely better than one for my seventh graders. Some more experienced or advanced players who want to go head-to-head can do so when they like, but many prefer the social interaction in the group of four."
Ironically, students don't always spell the words correctly, but they also get a chance to practice math, teamwork, and problem solving, Paisie said.
At Belmont Middle School, Scrabble Club meetings draw about 35 students in fifth through eighth grades every week, said Charbeneau. A school tournament in March decides which team will play toward the national championship.
"It's been fun to watch the club grow, and the kids come in excited to play. This also helps to grow the weaker students' interest in words. It helps them learn to play around with words and letters."
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"It's been very successful," she said. "It's been fun to watch the club grow, and the kids come in excited to play. This also helps to grow the weaker students' interest in words. It helps them learn to play around with words and letters."Students also become more confident in their language arts skills the more they play. "At the beginning of the Scrabble season, they use dictionaries and vocabulary sheets, but that drops off as the year goes on," said Charbeneau. The club also has a newsletter that includes some Scrabble strategies.
This year, teachers also are encouraging students to play Scrabble at home with a parent or a family member. Students get a small reward if they bring in the scorecard from the home game, she added.
DON'T TELL THEM THEY ARE LEARNING
Some teachers introduced students to Scrabble by playing it in the classroom, and were inspired by students' enthusiasm to start after-school play.
Lyn Robinson, a reading teacher at
Belllview Middle School in Pensacola, Florida, said using Scrabble in the classroom has helped some of her lower performing students. "I used Scrabble as a center activity and modified it to meet my needs," Robinson told Education World. "This game really motivated my students to increase their vocabulary! I have both the board games and the computer games. We had a school-wide word of the day and we would use the word of the day as the starting word several days a week when the students would play. My students enjoyed using the game and they were always looking up words in the dictionary."
She plans to play Scrabble as a vocabulary warm-up exercise each day, and would like to start a club this year or next.
Charbeneau brought the idea for a Scrabble club from her previous school, where it was very successful.
"The single phrase we hear most often from teachers is, 'They think they're playing a game, but they're actually learning.'"
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"Our Scrabble Club came about seven years ago, when I saw an ad for School Scrabble Kits in a language arts magazine," said Paisie. "I purchased, for only $50, a set that included six boards, sacks of letters, letter racks, a dictionary, a short motivational video, and rules. At first I used the game in class as a reward, then realized how much learning was going on and tried to make more time to play. It was -- and still is -- always a hit and receives a 'Yay!' whenever I announce it's time to play."The Spanish teacher borrowed the game for Scrabble in Spanish, she added, and a math teacher found a Scrabble game using equations rather than words.
Getting a club started also turned into a learning experience. "When my students were practicing persuasive writing, I had each of my four classes compose a group letter to our principal asking for permission to form an after-school Scrabble Club," Paisie told Education World. "So there was even some writing instruction that year. The kids were thrilled when the 'Yes' came back from our principal, and about 12 to 16 students came routinely for the rest of that year."
While no other costs have been involved with the club, Paisie is considering yearly dues of $5 per player to cover the cost of snacks.
The year after getting approval for a club, Paisie bought a second Scrabble set using money from the PTA. That first year, and in the years after, Paisie said she tried to form a formal "club" and intended for the "members" to make posters encouraging others to join, organize a school tournament, and a teacher-student game, but the activity still remains pretty informal. "We did the last event [teacher-student game], but for the most part, the kids just like to play and have time with their friends."
Most educators would agree that whether it is formal or informal play, an hour or so bent over a Scrabble board is time well spent. "The single phrase we hear most often from teachers is, '"They think they're playing a game, but they're actually learning,'" said Williams.
Monkey d Luffy is a pirate and the main protagonist of One Piece. He is the son of theRevolutionary Army's commander, Dragon, grandson of the famed Marine, Garp, and the foster brother of the late "Fire Fist" Portgas D. Ace and Sabo. His life long goal is to become the Pirate King by finding the legendary treasure left behind by the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. He believes that being Pirate King means you have the most freedom in the world.
100,000,000 to have reached the Red Line. Luffy's current bounty is 
He has a worldwide reputation for causing trouble, even among theShichibukai, and the Marines, committing actions that were deemed dangerous by the World Government. Luffy has repeatedly committed crimes against the World Government.
