Sports Card Language Arts Tips!

Sports card language activities can begin at very basic levels. Some of the language skills students can practice, for example, include simple card arrangements:

* in alphabetical order – by player or team name
* by abbreviation
* by vocabulary item.

Bilingual information is often available on these cards – English, French, Spanish, Italian. The right set of cards lets you make many linguistic points about word origins.

The backs of these cards are perfect introductions or unit inclusions in any study of abbreviations. The size limitation of the card is an illustration of the exact reason abbreviations exist – to use space more efficiently.

Researching these will help boys who won't ever admit they don't know, girls who like to know but don't want to be teased forever by boys, and you, who in learning with your class will reinforce how to research and that one can always learn something new. Besides, who wants their reputation stopped by a little bit of pasteboard?

Some students' interests in trading cards are directly related to their fondness for a particular player. Standing in line for an autograph is never so pleasing as receiving a letter or signed photo from the object of attraction. Occasionally, surprisingly with boys, you can sense this might be a good time to have each student
* Choose a sports card and write a fan letter.

Craft an endorsement script for a 30-second advertising spot.
* Select any subject (or team) on a trading card and choose either a likely or unlikely product for this person to endorse.
* Where will this endorsement be featured? Television? Radio? Website?
* Try out the script on a small group.
* Make any changes you need to sharpen your script.
* Record it!

Every sports card subject has its set of idioms and primacy of terms layered on top of a common English language. When you work through sports card language, you present both your students and yourself an opportunity to look at basic skills and how these are applied. For example,
* Collect the terms used in sports card games and create a class glossary.

Puzzles, cartoons, and riddles are fun to build from the rich material offered by sports cards. Either in groups, for junior and intermediate grades, or individually, for senior grades, encourage students' play with sports card language.
* From sports card information, create
* one puzzle
* or one riddle
* or one cartoon.

* Puzzles like "what do these cards have in common?" "which of these is known as Mikey?" "which card does not fit?" require knowledge on the part of both puzzle crafter and puzzle solver.

* Riddles like "what is a left-handed player called?" or "when is an Oriole a Jay?" or "what did the baseball say to the mitt?" require not just knowledge but a little deftness in language play for both riddler and riddlee.

Return from Teaching Sports Card Language Arts to Sports Cards hub page for even more sports card teaching ideas!


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