Who Said That?

Purpose:

To help the participants share background information.

Time:

10 to 20 minutes

Supplies:

  • Blank index cards
  • A flipchart with four or five questions that suit the participants and your topic.

Example: Here are the five questions that we used in a workshop on learning to use the World-Wide Web:

  1. What is your primary reason for coming to this workshop?
  2. What is a major worry that you have about this workshop?
  3. How would you rate your current knowledge of the Internet?
  4. What type of computer do you use?
  5. What do you think a Web page is?

Participants:

3 to 7. If you have more participants, divide them into roughly equal-sized groups, and have these groups play in a parallel fashion.

Flow of the game:

  1. Display the list of questions.
  2. Ask the participants to take one of their cards, and write the number "1" and their answer to the first question. They should repeat the process with each of the other questions, writing one answer per card. Ask the participants to place their answer cards face down in the middle of the table.
  3. Ask one participant to shuffle the answer cards and deal them out, face down, one card at a time.
  4. Announce that the activity will last for 10 more minutes. Start a timer.
  5. Ask the first participant to take one of the cards and read it aloud. If asked, this participant may read the card again, but may not show the card to anyone. (This is to prevent participants from recognizing the handwriting on the card.)
  6. All the participants (except the reader) now guess who wrote the card, and write down their guess. (The person who actually wrote the card should write down his or her own name, assuming that he or she is not the reader.)
  7. After everyone has finished writing, they reveal their guesses. The person who wrote the card identifies himself or herself. Those who guessed correctly score a point. The card is then placed face up in the middle of the table.
  8. The second participant now selects one of his or her cards and reads it aloud. The same procedure is repeated.
  9. If a card has the last remaining answer to a particular question, the person merely reads it and places it in the middle of the table. (There is no point in guessing, since everyone knows who wrote that card, through a process of elimination.) Play continues with the next person.
  10. Stop the game at the end of 10 minutes. Declare the person with the most correct guesses to be the winner.
  11. To bring things to a close, ask the participants to read the answers on the remaining cards and ask the writers to identify themselves.