Organization, Rules and Procedures - Print Edition

1. Divide the class into an odd number of teams. With classes under twenty, three is a good number; with more than 20, five works best. Each team should select a spokesperson/captain.
   
2. Using the teacher as moderator will work best, but it is possible to select someone else.
   
3. Two teams play at a time; one of the other teams acts as officials.
   
4. By personal choice, you can either have students raise their hand or slap their desk. The first hand/slap gets to answer the question. If the answer is incorrect, the first hand/slap on the other team should give the next answer. You can set a limited number of guesses, or play the question back and forth until a correct answer is received. You can either have a point penalty for incorrect answers (five or ten points works well) or have no point penalty (which encourages all students to play and take a chance).
   
5. Two of the officials act as scorekeepers. It works best to keep a running score, so if there is a math error, it can be easily be corrected.
   
6. Questions are arranged in five categories for each of the two games. Each game consists of questions of differing degrees of difficulty (10, 20, 40, 80 points) followed by a Bonus Series. It is possible to allow the student with the last correct answer to pick a category and point value, or to play the questions in order - by using all the tens, then the twenties, and so forth. The advantage to the latter is that it builds tension as the game develops and keeps the score closer.
   
7. Sweepstakes questions may be anticipated. If the answer given is wrong, the question is repeated in its entirety for the opposing team. You can then decide to kill the question or continue based on the rules you adopted earlier. (See rule # 4 above)
   
8. Whenever both teams fail on a question, the moderator will move to the next question based on how question selection is made. If each team is selecting the categories and point values, then the moderator will do the same. Otherwise, the next question will be read.
   
9. When a team answers an 80-point question correctly, they become eligible for the Bonus Series. These questions have a point value of 20. If you have a penalty for incorrect answers, there should be no penalty for Bonus Series questions.
   
10. The Bonus Series is the only time team members can confer with one another on an answer. The spokesperson/captain will give the answer. During the non-bonus part of the game, each student must answer the question without conferring with anyone else.
    
11. You can allow students to play on all questions, or have some restrictions to keep a few students from monopolizing the game. For example, you might have a rule not allowing the student who answered correctly to participate on the next question (excluding the Bonus Series). Another possibility is not to allow the student to answer first on the next question, but only after another student from either team has answered.

Other ideas

1. Below is a schedule for five teams playing over seven weeks, including a two-week playoff. This schedule has each team play each other once in the regular season. Each team plays twice in Game One, twice in Game Two and serves as the game official one time
   
   

   Week	Game One	Game Two	Officials
   1	Team A vs. Team E	Team D vs. Team B	Team C
   2	Team B vs. Team C	Team A vs. Team D	Team E
   3	Team D vs. Team C	Team E vs. Team B	Team A
   4	Team D vs. Team E	Team A vs. Team C	Team B
   5	Team A vs. Team B	Team C vs. Team E	Team D
   - - - - - - - - - Playoffs - - - - - - - -
   6	# 2 Team vs. # 4 Team	# 3 Team vs. # 5 Team	# 1 Team
   7	Winners from week 6	Winner of Game One vs. #1 regular season team	Losing teams from Week 6

   
   
2. You can create a prize for the winning team. At one school with a long history of playing Current Events Sweepstakes, the various teachers over the years have taken a photograph of the winning team each time and posted them on the classroom wall. The collection of photos spans more than two decades. Another is to create certificates and hand them out to the members of the winning team. Having a prize will increase student interest in doing well.
   
3. Energy and ownership put into playing the games by the teacher will pay off with increased student participation. Make it special by playing the same day of the week (last day is best) and students will read, watch, talk and study current events to do well. It has worked for teachers coast-to-coast, and it will work for you.