Stephen Horowitz is the Director of Online Legal English Programs at Georgetown Law.
I’ve realized in my legal English teaching that a lot of LLM students are not very familiar with American geography. And yet it’s very helpful background knowledge to know about in the context of studying in law school.
I thought about it again today because my kids just got a game called The Scrambled States of America Game.
It’s based on a very clever children’s book called the Scrambled States of America. But more importantly, it can be an engaging and fun way for LLM students to get more familiar with American geography.
The way the Scrambled States of America Game seems to work (after watching my kids play it today) is that each person has 5 state cards in front of them. Each state has the state name, the capital, and the state’s nickname. Then you draw a card from the deck and it says something like “A state nickname with 4 different vowels in it.” So you look at your cards to see if you have one that fits the requirement, and you try to be the first to say that state’s name before the other players can identify one from their state cards.
There’s also a map without state names that is put out that has some purpose that I haven’t had time to determine yet.
But it seems to create a lot of repeated exposures to state names and locations while connecting basic knowledge about states in a way that’s fun and leads to absorption of the info. On top of that, it’s social and a good ice-breaker. Plus it leads to lots of back and forth negotiating and commenting, all of which is good for speaking and listening practice.
Conclusion: This would be an ideal great game to play during LLM Orientation. Well, in a normal non-pandemic year anyway. And in that regard, it wouldn’t hurt if an online version could be created.
