KABOOM! The Rhetorical Analysis Game that Makes Engagement Explode

I am SO EXCITED to share this one with you! 

I came across a few elementary school blogs about a center game called KABOOM. Something just clicked–why couldn’t this work for rhetorical analysis at the high school level? After some testing and adjusting, I’m pretty thrilled to bring KABOOM to my classroom this fall. Here’s the gist: students draw rhetorical analysis questions (attached to popsicle sticks) from a cup and answer them aloud. If they answer accurately, they keep the questions. If they draw a popsicle stick with a firecracker icon, they must put ALL their sticks back in the cup. The game goes for a teacher-determined amount of time (a great time to put a countdown timer on the projector to add an element of intensity), and the student with the most popsicle sticks in his or her hand at the end of the game wins.

What’s so amazing about KABOOM? You can use it for any text. You can use it for any amount of time. You can use it over and over and over again, and it never loses meaning or value. 

 

A little assembly is required…

Three ways I’m using KABOOM this school year:

1. Vocabulary review: We use Hot Words for the SAT* (students master the words using Vocabulary.com). Sometimes we need a little review or extra practice with the words. The vocab KABOOM requires students to define the words and use them accurately in a sentence.
2. Reading comprehension: I rarely give formal comprehension assessments. Instead we’ll use KABOOM to check understanding of the text. It’s a perfect review after a long weekend or a chunk of independent reading.
3.  Close reading/rhetorical analysis: I created a set of KABOOM sticks with questions related to the rhetorical situation of a text. These questions work for virtually any text, and I add a few more text-specific questions as needed. This is an excellent way to start discussion about a text and to help students internalize the kinds of questions they should ask themselves when they read.

I’ve created a KABOOM set for high school ELA. It includes directions for making KABOOM sets, student-friendly rules to post or project, container labels for your KABOOM sets, and KABOOM questions for rhetorical analysis (both color and black-and-white are included). You can see part of my set in the pictures in this post. Grab it from my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

And for you, fellow rhetor, I have a 75 Rhetorical Analysis Questions Freebie from the set I’m selling in my TPT store. It has all 75 rhetorical analysis questions from my previous blog post, formatted as a student reference sheet. Enjoy!

*Not an affiliate link.