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I Got Game!

    One of my favorite things to do as a teacher is play games in the classroom. When I first started teaching, and while I was still very active and a whole lot smaller, it was nothing for me to participate in a game of football, basketball or volleyball with my kids. Now I like a more...controlled environment for my games. I learned about Trasketball from Jerome Ramsey's Pre-Algebra class. You ask a question, and if you get it right, you get to shoot the ball into the trashcan from a 1-point line, 2-point line, and a 3-point line, thus the name Trashketball. He also played a game called Bluff. Two teams compete QUIETLY against each other. One team is asked a question. If you think you know the answer, you QUIETLY stand up. Or....if you don't know the answer, you can stand up and Bluff the other team. However many teammates stand up is the number of points you are playing for. One person from the other team calls on one of the people standing to answer the question. If that person gets it right, his team gets those points. But.....if he answers incorrectly, the other team gets the points.
    I love both of these games, so I decided to do a variation of the two games and call it Bluffketball! The game starts out like traditional Bluff. Ask the question, stand up or Bluff, and if you get the question correctly answered, you get to shoot for points. From the one-point line, you shoot for the points x1. From the two-point line, you shoot for the points x2, and from the three-point line, you get the points x3. But in order to actually get the points, you HAVE to make the shot. However...if you answer the question incorrectly, the person that chose you gets to shoot for the points. The game can change in an instant. Then, I decided to add one more variation. After every four questions, I shoot from the three-point line. If I make it, ALL SCORES GO TO ZERO!!! Crazy, huh?
    So today was a great day to play Bluffketball. My Special Interest English class is preparing for our final exam, and the majority of the test will be their Greek prefixes and suffixes. The game was going okay; scores were staying pretty close together. I couldn't make a three-pointer if my life depended on it. so the scores were all theirs. And the scores were climbing higher and higher. And then, Team 1 started to pull away. It seemed Team 1 was unstoppable. My turn to shoot. With my track record today, I don't think Team 1 had much to worry about. There was the usual cat-calling when I shoot....Miss it, McGee!   Throw a big ole Brick, McGee!   Please make it, McGee!! (That was of course Team 2 screaming that!)  You could hear them outside my classroom, but who cares! This was some real fun!!  I take my stance at the three-point line. I pause, taking aim for my long three-pointer. And then, as if in slow motion, I shoot the ball. The arch looks good....is it long enough?.....go.....go.......go.......and then.........swish!!! Team 1 screams in defeat and Team 2 screams for joy! And me....I just turn around and take a bow! Ah, yes.....McGee still got game, baby!

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