First, an Introduction
Every Friday is WordPlay Day, which means that the class period will be devoted to Scrabble games in which you and one of your classmates will play as a team against two other classmates. Before the beginning of class each Friday, volunteers will draw four names at a time at random to form five groups of four and write the group members’ first and last names on the white board. If you arrive early to class, please volunteer to help with the name-drawing or name-writing (on the whiteboard) process.
If you haven’t played Scrabble before, this short video tutorial will provide you with a helpful overview of the game. Also, I will be offering a brief introduction to the game myself at the beginning of class and will be available to answer your questions, except these: (1) Is this a word? and (2) Is this a playable word? For the answers to those questions, you must rely on your own word power and the word power of your teammate.
Each week I will publish a blog entry devoted to tips for improving your game. This week’s post focuses on parallel play and two-letter words beginning with a.
Parallel Play and Two-Letter Words Beginning with “A”
Parallel play increases your score through the points you earn by spelling more than one word in a single turn. In the first play of the hypothetical game pictured at the top of this post, the first player or team would score sixteen points by spelling enact with the t on the center double-word square. With the second turn, the other player or team could take advantage of the opportunity for parallel play. If the team knew that aa is a type of lava, they could earn twenty-four points with four words: whoa, he, on, and aa.
Aa is one of sixteen playable two-letter words beginning with a. Learning these two-letter words, as well as the others that follow in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.
- aa: a type of stony, rough lava
- ab: an abdominal muscle
- ad: an advertisement
- ae: one
- ag: agriculture
- ah: an exclamation
- ai: a three-toed sloth
- al: a type of East Indian tree
- am: the first-person singular present form of to be
- an: an indefinite article
- ar: the letter r
- as: similar to
- at: in the position of
- aw: an expression of sadness or protest
- ax: a type of cutting tool (also axe)
- ay: a vote in the affirmative (also aye)
Important Note about Challenges
If you think that the opposing team has played a word that isn’t permissable, such as a misspelled word or a proper noun, tell me that you have a challenge. I will consult the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary to determine whether the word in question is playable. If the challenged word isn’t playable, the team that set it down loses a turn. Conversely, if the challenged word is playable, the team that called the challenge loses a turn.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, look to the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, Merriam-Webster’s Scrabble Word Finder page, and review this post devoted to Scrabble tips.
Jane Lucas 