Collective Intelligence

Have you ever heard of Microsoft Encarta?

Neither had I.  Here's why.

Daniel Pink, in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth about Motivation, tells the story of two ideas for encyclopedias: Microsoft Encarta was going to pay a group of professionals to write the most up-to-date encyclopedia; Wikipedia was just a bunch of un-organised volunteers contributing whatever they could. 

It turns out that Wikipedia was just more fun to do: you contribute what you know and gain respect.

What if we could teach GRAMMAR in this way?

It's long been known that a group of people can be more than the sum of its parts.  A thousand people will solve a puzzle better than one person working alone.  Jane McGonigal proved this in her landmark case study of ilovebees.com, a search-and-anaylse puzzle involving thousands of Halo fans from all over the world.  At one point, this massive bunch of virtual strangers had co-ordinated their findings so well that when a mystery phone rang somewhere in Seattle, one of them was there to answer it. 

What if we designed grammar as a mystery search-and-analyse puzzle that the whole class has to answer?

I tried this.  Here was my lesson for the past unreal conditional:
Students each recieved one of the following articles in their mail box or FB message.  They had to answer the reading question because it provided a clue to the "mystery grammar point".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/05/angelina-jolie-jon-stewart-stolie_n_6275440.html What does “Stolie” mean in this article?

https://www.yahoo.com/music/bp/steven-tyler-why-joined-quit-american-idol-233049983.html “pink slipped” means “fired” (despedido).  Was Steven Tyler fired?
http://bigread.mojo4music.com/2014/01/slash/ (look for the section called “The first time you got arrested was at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard?” which is way down) What did his mother save him from?
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/03/eric-clapton-was-to-meet-up-with-jimi-hendrix-on-the-night-hendrix-died-he-was-also-with-stevie-ray-vaughan-when-he-died/ How did Jimi Hendrix die?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyfriend_(Justin_Bieber_song) in the section called “background and artwork”, does it say the song was reviewed before it was released or released before it was reviewed?
http://m.dailykos.com/stories/575256 The “nice old man running for president” made what possible?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/12/11/what-if-obama-had-been-honest/ does the writer think Obama told the truth?

Then as a class, they had to work out the name, structure and use of the "mystery grammar point".
It took them 90 minutes.  The hardest part was understanding that the past unreal conditional is used to describe relief or regret over a past event.

I tried it again with a bigger group, but this time with the passive voice.  Because of the size of the group, I divided them into four and made it a race.  Here are the articles with the questions:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2962543/Hilary-Duff-files-divorce-estranged-husband-Mike-Comrie-seen-hitting-women.html Why did Hilary Duff want to divorce her husband?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2991335/David-Luiz-seen-Chelsea-optimistic-defender-laugh-Stamford-Bridge.html  Who did Chelsea see as being a bad defender?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2997983/Prisoner-asked-warders-Bible-given-porn-magazines-instead-help-sleep.html What did the prisoner want?  What did he get?

http://ca.complex.com/music/2015/03/wiz-khalifa-jimmy-fallon-appearance-taylor-swift what was the question?

http://www.biography.com/#!/people/prince-william-9542068#synopsis what is the Prince’s full name?  How did he feel about his parents’ divorce?http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/15/entertainment/nicholas-brendon-new-arrest-feat/ Why did the police arrest Brendon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_John_Lennon How did John Lennon die?
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/malcolm-x-assassinated Why did Malcolm X go to prison?

This time the fastest group got it in under an hour.  The hardest part was to understand that the passive voice is not the same as the active because the focus of the sentence changes.

Results: Normally students seem to undertand how the structure is used, but not why.  I saw a major improvement in this with most students able to use the structure appropriately more quickly.