The Uncool Quiz- Lesson Procedure

Warmer

• Think of 2/3 things that you do that would be considered uncool or that you are slightly ashamed of, e.g. you love Christmas Carols, you cry when watching romantic comedies, etc.
• Draw clues on the WB for the students to guess your 2/3 uncool things above. I’m terrible at drawing so I usually play some other type of guessing game, e.g. “here are 3 lines from a famous song I love, listen to the theme track from this movie I watched a million times or something like that.”
• Reveal the answers and elicit the common thread, i.e. these are all things people can find uncool or things people are ashamed of…

Writing the Uncool Quiz

• Tell SS they have to think of 2/3 things they do that are uncool. Alternatively, they can think of three things that are considered uncool in their group of friends, e.g. wearing white tank tops under their shirts. SS need to work individually here. Prompt them to think about different things, not just style and music. They could think of “uncool” things to say such as politically-correct versions of taboo words, old-style sayings and so on. They can write these in their native language.
• Organize the class in groups of 3 or 4. In their groups. the SS should write an “Uncool Quiz” for you, the teacher! The purpose of the quiz is to verify how uncool you are. The test should be multiple-choice. They could test your knowledge of cheesy, romantic movies or songs or test your knowledge of uncool sayings or phrases in their native language.
• Monitor & edit! J

Quizzes

• Once groups have finished their quizzes, they should swap them. As a group, they vote on how good the quiz is in testing how uncool the teacher is. They give the test a grade from 1 to 5. Ideally, you should monitor here and complete the tests at this stage so the students find out how uncool you are. You can also help them with more error-correction
• FB and comments on the quizzes.

Reflection  (classroom discussion or written homework task)

• What do the quizzes tell us about us? What do they tell us about our insecurities, our beliefs, our systems?
• Why are we ashamed of these things? What really tests/defines our uncoolness?