This Mind Sprint has been reformatted as a sample.
OBJECTIVE: To give students a problem which requires teamwork, planning, creative thinking and attention to directions.
Conducting the Mind Sprint: [Make sure the team entering the room is the scheduled team. Then say,] Your task for the next eight minutes is to design a poetry cube. Using paper and other supplies from your Competition Kit, make a cube that has six sides featuring different poetry. Here's the list of what your cube sides must contain; and among the five of you, it needs to be done in a very timely manner! Divide up the work and begin! [Answer questions during the eight minutes. We've provided you with a few additional guidelines on the back. Be consistent with what you tell each team. For instance, if you tell the first team that the cube may be made from several pieces of paper, don't tell another team that they must use a single sheet, etc.]
*Their slip of paper [which you must make to use this sample] says:
- Write at least four lines in which the rhyming words all end with the sound of "-ane".
- Write at least four lines in which the rhyming words all end with the sound of "-ing"
- Write at least four lines about an animal; print it in the form of that animal.
- Write at least four lines about your team.
- Make a poem about a witch, ogre, warlock or other villain.
- Write four or more lines about the new millennium.
Additional Guidelines for facilitating, judging Poetry Cubes:
- Words do not need to be correctly spelled. For instance, if someone wants to write:
I hate to travel by plane
It makes me just insane
Plane travel's so inane,
I'd rather take the trane!!
- You may define the word "millennium" but they must look up any other word in their dictionaries. Tell them that they are to "write something about the future of the next 1000 years".
- The cubes must be 3-dimensional, although they probably will collapse. It's hard to make scratch paper stiff enough and tape it well enough to be a rigid cube-especially in just eight minutes!
- Tell the teams when three minutes are left in their working time, and warn them again when 90 seconds are left in their working time. Call "time" at exactly eight minutes for every team!
Scoring:
The first team likely will be used as your "benchmark" and you'll judge up or down based on whatever you give the first team. Award 10 points for each finished side, then evaluate each side for creativity-color, style and theme-and award 1 to 10 pts. for teamwork. (See back for more help.) Please use a separate half-sheet paper to score each team, then record only the total raw score on the score sheet for the Host/Facilitator. Each poetry cube and the half-sheet scoring information should be returned to each team at the conclusion of this Meet.
It may be necessary to delay tallying scores until all teams have competed, as it will be hard to finish during the short passing time you're allowed between teams. It may actually be easier to score the cubes after you've seen all of them together. This is up to you.
Scoring tips:
- COLOR=5 PTS. Simply count up the number of colors used on a team's cube and multiply by five to arrive at a color score. Five markers times 5 points is 25 points for color, for example. Give at least five points, since the ink is one color.
- THEME=10 PTS. If a poem has a theme--point of view-score up to 10 creativity points per poem.
"A witch is black/ a witch is white,
she flies by day/ she flies by night"
"A warlock has a choice/ He needn't be mean, maybe.
He could use his voice/ To sing to sleep his baby!"
...puts a new spin on what it might mean to be a warlock. Additional points should be awarded for theme.
- STYLE=25 PTS. "Style" is special, extra things that the team adds to their cube. If they reinforce it by using additional pieces of paper formed into straws, if they use colorful flaps to hide their poems, if they come up with a particularly unique poem-story about their team, they may be given up to 25 extra points in this category.
- TEAMWORK=2-10 PTS. Teamwork is any method used to prevent negative assertions and arguing. Any effective form-from committee decision-making to a benevolent dictatorship-may be teamwork. They won't finish in eight minutes without it!
5. FAILURE TO DO MIND SPRINT: If a team doesn't finish in the allowed time, give them partial scores. You may award them the same point values as other teams, but do not award any points for teamwork, as the team will have failed to work the Mind Sprint. All other teams must get at least two points for teamwork.