Scrabble – Jane Lucas

ENG 1103: Irritable Vowel Syndrome . . .

Posted on October 2, 2026 by janemlucas

Knowing words with multiple vowels proves useful when you’re faced with a rack of mostly, or all, vowels. Here’s a list of the four-letter words with three vowels, beginning with a through m:

aeon: a long period of time (also eon)
agee: to one side (also ajee)
agio: a surcharge applied when exchanging currency
ague: a sickness associated with malaria
ajee: to one side (also agee)
akee: a tropical tree
alae: wings (pl. of ala)
alee: on the side shielded from wind
amia: a freshwater fish
amoa: a kind of small buffalo
awee: a little while
eaux: waters (pl. of eau)
eide: distinctive appearances of things (pl. of eidos)
emeu: an emu
etui: an ornamental case
euro: an Australian marsupial, also known as wallaroo, for being like the kangaroo and the wallaby; also a unified currency of much of Europe
ilea: the terminal portions of small intestines (pl. of ileum)
ilia: pelvic bones (pl. of ilium)
jiao: a Chinese currency (also chiao)
luau: a large Hawaiian feast
meou: to meow
moue: a pouting expression

After Fall Break

On Monday, October 12, we will examine the student analysis “One Mississippi,” which you will read and annotate for class. We will also discuss your journal entries on the excerpt from Maus as a lead-in to our reading of a second sample analysis, “The Strange Fruit of Sosnowiec,” which I will distribute in class that day.

If you were absent when I distributed “One Mississippi” and the Maus journal exercise or misplace yours, print copies from Blackboard. “One Mississippi” is in the sample papers folder; the Maus journal exercise is in the readings folder.

Also, be sure to have your copy of Dan Rockmore‘s “Should the Classroom Be More Like the Gym?” We will look back at his essay as we review some short passages from your midterm reflections.

Coverage of Covering Sci-Fi

Our September 16 sessions at Smith Library are the subject of the HPU Libraries‘ Special Collections blog post published yesterday: “Covering Science Fiction: When Special Collections Becomes the Classroom.”

I encourage you to read the post, which includes a photograph of students in each of your classes examining the book covers. Two sections of the post, “Four Ways to Read a Cover” and “From Looking to Making an Argument” may spark an idea for your revision of you analysis. If a line in the post is relevant to your analysis, you include the blog post as a second source. Here is the model for the works cited entry:

Ward, Gerald. “Covering Science Fiction: When Special Collections Becomes the Classroom.” HPU Libraries, 1 October 2026, https://www.highpoint.edu/library/.

In your MS Word or PDF file, the second line of the entry should be indented five spaces.

Read. Reflect. Connect.

HPU Libraries‘ Read. Reflect. Connect. offers members of the university community the opportunity connect through a shared reading (this year, The Happiness Project). Registration is open now and continues through October 15. If you sign up, later in the fall, you will receive a copy of the book (your choice of a physical or digital copy). In the spring semester, you will have the opportunity to take part in events that focus on readers shared experiences of reading Gretchen Rubin‘s book.

Bonus Assignment

Register for Read. Reflect. Connect.
After you have signed up, compose a brief blog comment stating that you have registered for Read. Reflect. Connect.
Post your comment as a reply to today’s blog post by 7:30 a.m. on Friday, October 16.
To post your comment, click the title, “ENG 1103: Irritable Vowel Syndrome . . . ,” then scroll down to the bottom of the post. There you will see the image of an airmail envelope with a rectangular box for your comment. Type your comment in the box and hit return.

Happy Fall Break!

I look forward to seeing you back in class on Monday, October 12.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Preparing for Your Midterm Reflection and Constant Consonants

Posted on September 25, 2026 by janemlucas

Monday in class you will plan and compose a midterm reflective essay that documents your work in the first half of the semester, focusing on two or three assignments or aspects of the course that have contributed to your development as a writer and a student. Since you have already written a reflection devoted solely to your literacy narrative, your midterm reflection should focus primarily on other assignments or aspects of the course. One of the requirements of the reflection is incorporating a relevant quotation from Dan Rockmore’s essay “Should the Classroom Be More Like the Gym?” Before Monday’s class, determine what phrase, clause, or sentence you will quote, and draft a sentence in your journal that introduces the quotation with a signal phrase and follows it with a parenthetical citation.

Directions

To comply with the requirements for your reflection assignment, you will need to complete the planning exercise that follows. In class, you will not be permitted to refer to this blog post or any other online resources. You will need to have all the necessary citation information written longhand in your journal.

Review “Should the Classroom Be More Like the Gym?” and number its paragraphs.
Choose a phrase, clause, or sentence pertinent to your experience as a student in English 1103. What you select may remind you of a particular assignment or activity in the course, or may speak to your experience with or concerns about A.I.
After you have chosen a passage, compose a signal phrase in your journal to introduce the quotation. (See the examples below.) Many academic writing assignments, including most that follow MLA style, require a signal phrase. A quotation that lacks one is considered a dropped quotation.
Follow your signal phrase with the quotation, and follow the quote with an MLA-style parenthetical citation. (See the examples below.)
Optional: Below your sentence, write the MLA-style work cited entry for Rockmore’s essay. You will not need to refer to your journal for that information because it’s included on your copy of the essay. In class, when you write your work cited entry, you can refer to the one on your handout. Why write a work cited entry in my journal if I’m not required to? you might ask. As Rockmore notes, “the exercise is the point” (par. 15).

Examples

In “Should the Classroom Be More Like the Gym?” Dan Rockmore observes, “If the process is the goal, we should be focussing on how to create classrooms that make the process worth doing for its own sake” (par. 8). That aim underlies my classes’ varied structure. Alternating close reading of texts, drafting, and revising, with frequent short exercises, small-group collaboration, and weekly Scrabble play provides students with a variety of opportunities to hone their skills as writers, readers, and thinkers. And the range of assignments and activities reduces the risk of the monotony that can plague a seventy-minute class period.
In “Should the Classroom Be More Like the Gym?” the author observes, “If the process is the goal, we should be focussing on how to create classrooms that make the process worth doing for its own sake” (Rockmore, par. 8). That aim underlies my classes’ varied structure. Alternating close reading of texts, drafting, and revising, with frequent short exercises, small-group collaboration, and weekly Scrabble play provides students with a variety of opportunities to hone their skills as writers, readers, and thinkers. And the range of assignments and activities reduces the risk of the monotony that can plague a seventy-minute class period.

The two examples above are very similar, not identical. The first one names the author, so only the abbreviation par. and the paragraph number appear in the parenthetical citation. The second does not name the author, so his last name and a comma precede the paragraph number in the parenthetical citation.

Notice how the two sentences that follow the quotation demonstrate the relevance of Dan Rockmore’s ideas to my own teaching philosophy and practices. If I were to continue the reflection that I began in the examples above, I would offer examples to support my claim that such activities as close readings of essays and short stories and Scrabble play develop students’ analytical skills.

Note that Rockmore’s spelling of focusing as focussing with two s‘s is an acceptable variation, but the single-s spelling is preferable in formal writing.

You are welcome to cite one or more additional readings in your reflection. If you plan to do so, repeat the steps in the directions above with your chosen essay, short story, or chapter. In your journal, make note of the examples in the September 8 class notes. Pay close attention to the differences between parenthetical citations for sources with page numbers and those without. You do not need to write the work cited entry in your journal because it’s included on your copy of the reading. In class, when you write your work cited entry, you can refer to the one on your handout. Note the hanging-indent style of the work cited entries, which is the opposite of an MLA-style paragraph.

Constant Consonants

In Scrabble, if you think it’s impossible to make a play with the tiles on your rack, you can forgo a turn and swap tiles, all seven or fewer. If you think losing a turn and swapping tiles is inevitable, examine the board closely to determine whether a one- or two-letter low-point play is an option. Often it is. If not, and the problem you face is a rack without vowels, one of the words in today’s list might be an option.

brr: used to indicate that one is cold
crwth: an ancient stringed instrument (pl. -s)
cwm: a cirque (a deep, steepwalled basin on a mountain, pl. -s, prounounced to rhyme with “boom”)
hm: used to express thoughtful consideration (also “hmm“)
mm: used to express assent or satisfaction
nth: describing an unspecified number in a series
phpht: used as an expression of mild anger or annoyance (also “pht“)
psst: used to attract someone’s attention
sh: used to urge silence (also “shh” and “sha“)
tsk: to utter an exclamation of annoyance (-ed, -ing, -s)
tsktsk: to “tsk” (-ed, -ing, -s)

Next Up

In class on Monday, you will write your midterm reflection. Review the guidelines in today’s blog post to prepare.

Coming Soon

On Wednesday, September 30, I will return your handwritten drafts (with my notes), and you will have the class period to begin revising on your laptops. Because the first week of October is Fall Break, you have two additional weeks to revise before you submit your analysis to Blackboard and publish it on WordPress. The due date for your revised analysis is Wednesday, October, 14 (before class). The deadline is Friday, October 16 (before class).

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, Q-Z

Posted on September 18, 2026September 18, 2026 by janemlucas

Today’s blog post is the final installment in the series of posts devoted to playable two-letter words. Learning these two-letter words, as well as the other two-letter words in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.

qi: the central life force in Chinese culture (also ki)
re: a tone of the diatonic scale
sh: used to encourage silence
si: a tone of the diatonic scale (also ti)
so: a tone of the diatonic scale (also sol)
ta: an expression of thanks
ti: a tone of the diatonic scale
to: in the direction of
uh: used to express hesitation
um: used to express hesitation
un: one
up: to raise (-s, -ped, -ping)
us: a plural pronoun
ut: the musical tone C in the French solmization system, now replaced by do
we: a first-person plural pronoun
wo: woe
xi: a Greek letter
xu: a former monetary unit of Vietnam equal to one-hundreth of a dong (also sau, pl. xu)
ya: you
ye: you
yo: an expression used to attract attention
za: pizza

Next Up

For Monday’s class, you will read and annotate Brian Aldiss’s short stories “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and “Supertoys in Other Seasons,” which I distributed in class on Wednesday. If you were absent or misplaced your copies, print ones from Blackboard.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, M-P

Posted on September 10, 2026September 10, 2026 by janemlucas

In the previous weeks, Scrabble blog posts have featured playable two-letter words beginning with the letters a through l. Today’s post features the playable two-letter words beginning with m, n, o, and p. Learning these two-letter words, as well as the other two-letter words in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.

M, by the way, is the most versatile consonant. In the first position, m pairs with every vowel: ma, me, mi, mo, mu, and also my. In the second position, m pairs with every vowel except i: am, em, om, um.

ma: a mother
me: a singular objective pronoun
mi: a tone of the diatonic scale
mm: an expression of assent
mo: a moment
mu: a Greek letter
my: a first-person possessive adjective
na: no, not
ne: born with the name of (also nee)
no: a negative answer
nu: a Greek letter
od: a hypothetical force
oe: a whirlwind off the Faero Islands
of: originating from
oh: an exclamation of surprise
oi: an expression of dismay (also oy)
om: a sound used as a mantra
on: the batsman’s side in cricket
op: a style of abstract art dealing with optics
or: the heraldic color gold
os: a bone
ow: used to express pain
ox: a clumsy person
oy: an expression of dismay (also oi)
pa: a father
pe: a Hebrew letter
pi: a Greek letter

Don’t Go There (in Scrabble)

Baum, L. Frank. *The Wonderful Wizard of Oz*. 1900. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005.

Occasionally, students will play oz, which isn’t one of the words in the list above. It’s absent from that list because it’s a proper noun that isn’t also a common noun.

That isn’t the case with the name of Dorothy’s aunt, Em, which is playable as the common noun em: the letter m and the width of a piece of type about as wide as it is tall, used as a unit of measure of typeset matter (hence the term em dash).

And if the letters on your rack spell emerald–the first word in the name of Oz’s capital city–and you can play them all in one turn, you will earn an extra fifty points for playing all seven of your letters. Ditto for cyclone and tornado, words for the storm that sends Dorothy on her journey, and woodman, the second word in her tin friend’s name.

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review your journal notes and the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, F-L . . .

Posted on September 4, 2026September 4, 2026 by janemlucas

Previous Scrabble blog posts featured playable two-letter words beginning with the letters a through e. Today’s entry lists playable two-letter words beginning with f, g, h, i, j, k, and l. Learning these two-letter words, as well as the other two-letter words in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and may increase your score.

fa: a tone on the diatonic scale
fe: a Hebrew letter (also feh)
gi: a white garment worn in martial arts
go: a Japanese board game
ha: used to express surprise
he: a pronoun signifying a male
hi: an expression of greeting
hm: used to express consideration
ho: used to express surprise
id: the least censored part of the three-part psyche
if: a possibility
in: to harvest (a verb, takes -s, -ed, -ing)
is: the third-person singular present form of “to be”
it: a neuter pronoun
jo: a sweetheart
ka: the spiritual self in ancient Egyptian spirituality
ki: the vital life force in Chinese spirituality (also qi)
la: a tone of the diatonic scale
li: a Chinese unit of distance
lo: an expression of surprise

It’s all Greek to Me

Since this week finds us in the midst of sorority and fraternity rush, today’s post includes the Greek alphabet. The names of all twenty-four letters are playable words.

alpha
beta
gamma
delta
epsilon
zeta
eta
theta
iota
kappa
lambda
mu
nu
xi
omicron
pi
rho
sigma
tau
upsilon
phi
chi (also khi)
psi
omega

The idiom “it’s all Greek to me,” used to describe anything hard to understand, was popularized by Julius Caesar, in which the character Casca says he didn’t understand a word Cicero spoke (in Greek) at the festival (Shakespeare 1.2).

Thanks to Shakespeare, Greek, sometimes with a lowercase g, is playable in Scrabble as a common noun meaning anything unintelligible.

Next Up

On Monday, after your Scrabble debriefing, we will examine “A Bridge to Words,” which I will distribute today. Read and annotate your copy before Monday’s class. If you were absent today or misplace your copy, print one from Blackboard.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Sample Literacy Narratives . . .

Posted on August 31, 2026August 31, 2026 by janemlucas

This morning in class, after your Scrabble debriefing, we will examine “Creativity is Key,” which you read and annotated for today. In groups, you and two or three of your classmates will compose a brief written assessment of the essay and determine a letter grade for it, based on the assignment guidelines and grade criteria.

Once you have evaluated “Creativity is Key,” we will discuss it as a class. After that, I will distribute copies of a second student literacy narrative for you to read, assess, and grade.

For your reference, your group worksheet lists the literacy narrative’s guidelines and grade criteria, which also appear below.

Guidelines

The focus should be one of the following:

A memory of a reading or writing assignment that you recall vividly
Someone who helped you learn to read or write
A writing-related school event that you found humorous or embarrassing
A particular type of writing that you found (or still find) challenging
A memento that represents an important moment in your development as a reader or writer
Learning a second language

The narrative should be a well-told story that includes the following elements:

Vivid detail
Some indication of the narrative’s significance
A minimum of 600 words
A title that offers a window into your essay (It should not be titled “Literacy Narrative.”)

All three major writing assignments for English 1103, including the literacy narrative, must comply with MLA style guidelines.

Grade Criteria

An A literacy narrative complies with all assignment guidelines: It presents a well-told story, includes vivid details, and conveys the story’s significance in a way that demonstrates a depth of understanding. An A literacy narrative is also well-organized and relatively free of surface errors.
A B literacy narrative complies with all assignment guidelines but may convey the significance of the story superficially, may have organization issues, or may be flawed by surface errors.
A C literacy narrative complies with most but not all assignment guidelines and may be flawed by organization issues and/or surface errors.
A D literacy narrative complies with only a few of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by organization issues and/or surface errors.
An F literacy narrative fails to comply with most or all assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by substantial issues of organization and/or surface errors.

Scrabble Debriefing, continued

Today’s Scrabble debriefing will continue with a study of some of the plays in the games pictured below. Answers to the questions that I pose about those plays are included at the end of the post.

Acronyms: To Act or Not to Act?

If you have the letters to form an acronym, should you act on it? Each of the following two games includes an acronym. In the first game, the acronym appears once. In the second game, the same acronym was played twice, once using a blank tile. What is an acronym, and are the acronyms below playable in Scrabble?

When You Draw a Blank

In the game below, a team used a blank on a bonus square to score a two-letter double-word play with the letter a. Although that play is permissible, it isn’t advisable. Why should the team have chosen a different play? The game also includes four unplayable words. The fourth unplayable word was formed by pluralizing (adding s) to an unplayable word.

Assessing S

In the game that follows, a team played two s tiles to form the single word toss. The play is similar to the play of blank in the previous game because although the play is permissible, it isn’t advisable. Why should the team have chosen a different play?

The Long and Short of It

The word vigorous in the game below was formed by adding “o-u-s” to vigor, yet another play that is permissible but not advisable. Why should the team have chosen a different play? Consider that the words duo and tour had already been played–and what letter had not been played?

Three Letters, Three Words

In the game below, in one play, a team formed one of the two-letter b words featured in Friday’s post, along with two other words for a total of forty-eight points. What is the two-letter b word and what are the other two?

Up Next

Wednesday will be devoted to revision work. I will return your literacy narrative drafts, and you will then have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting to Blackboard and WordPress. The due date for your literacy narrative is Wednesday, September 9, before class; the hard deadline is Friday, September 11, before class.

Answers

Acronyms: To Act or Not to Act? An acronym is a series of letters in which each letter is the first letter in a word. For example, NASA is an acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Acronyms are not playable in Scrabble. MIA, which was played in the first game, is an acronym for missing in action. Note that the word bon–playable in French Scrabble but not in the North American game–was also played. IQ, which was played twice in the second game, once with a blank, is an acronym for intelligence quotient.
When You Draw a Blank: Though the blank tile followed by the a can form many permissible two-letter words, it earns the team only two points for the double-word play. In all likelihood, the team could have scored more points elsewhere by playing one or more lettered tiles. Keep in mind that a blank can be used as any letter, but it has no point value. Also note that four unplayable words were played in the same game: taft, ea, df, and tafts.
Assessing S: Playing toss for six points is permissible but not advisable because the team probably could have earned six or more points by playing other letters and saving the two s tiles for higher-scoring words. Also, the placement of toss offers the opposing team the opportunity to make a triple-word play on the bottom row.
The Long and Short of It: Playing vigorous was a risky move that only gained the team thirteen points. It was a risky play because two of the four u tiles had been used (to form tour and duo), and the q had not been played. Even if the team could not score as many as thirteen points elsewhere, a lower-scoring play would have been preferable to losing a u and an s for a gain of only thirteen.
Three Letters, Three Words: One team’s knowledge of the two-letter word bi in last Friday’s post enabled its players to form three words in a single play: fix, bi, and ox, which earned the team a double double-word score for fix and ox with the x on the double-word square. That double double-word score and the additional word bi earned the team forty-eight points for a turn in which they played only three letters. The unplayable word pedels–a misspelling of pedals, perhaps–was played later in the game.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, B-E . . .

Posted on August 28, 2026August 28, 2026 by janemlucas

The first Scrabble blog post of the semester featured playable two-letter words beginning with a. Learning those two-letter words, as well as the others that follow in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and can increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.

Here’s a list of the playable words beginning with b, d, and e:

ba: the soul in ancient Egyptian spirituality
bi: a bisexual
bo: a pal
by: a side issue
de: of, from
do: to perform, also a tone on a scale
ed: education
ef: the letter f (also eff)
eh: used to express doubt
el: an elevated train
em: the letter m
en: the letter n
er: used to express hesitation
es: the letter s
et: a past tense of eat
ex: the letter x

When in Doubt . . .

Consult the guidelines (in the game box) if you are unsure whether an action is permissible in gameplay. An additional copy of the guidelines follows.

Scrabble Guidelines

Do not let your opponents know which letters are on your rack. Whenever possible, communicate with your teammate nonverbally by pointing to the letters and rearranging them on the rack. If you need to refer out loud to letters on your rack, refer to them as “this one, that one . . . .”
Do not say the definition of a word aloud. If you play a word and your opponents question its validity, do not provide the definition. Definitions can be provided only in the event of a challenge. See the note below regarding challenges. Also, note that you will have the opportunity on your own after class to look up the meanings of any unfamiliar words played by your opponents or recommended by your teammate and subsequently played by the two of you. You will also have the chance to look up definitions during your Monday debriefings.
If you think your opponents have played a word that isn’t permissible, 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 and will provide the definition. 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.
If any group member’s smartphone or laptop is in evidence during the game, immediately tell that person to put it away. The presence of any player’s digital device is a foul—as is providing a definition or otherwise offering unauthorized assistance—and fouls come with penalties, five points each.

Repetition, Plurals, and Competitive Scrabble

Fatsis, Stefan. *Word Freak*. 2001. Penguin, 2002.

One question raised during last Friday’s Scrabble games was whether a team can play a word that has already been played, either by that team or the opponent. The answer is yes; you can play the same word multiple times in a single game. Scrabble has no rule prohibiting repetition.

Another question raised was whether you can play plurals. You can, but unless playing the letter s enables you to form multiple words in a single play and earn a substantially higher score, keeping the s tile on your rack (for a higher score in a later play) is a better option.

Are there Scrabble tournaments? That’s another question asked last Friday. Yes, hardcore players do compete in tournaments, and journalist Stefan Fatsis’ book Word Freak (pictured above) documents his immersion in the competitive Scrabble subculture.

Competitive Scrabble is also chronicled in the documentary film Word Wars (2004).

Next Up

On Monday, we will examine “Creativity is Key,” the sample student literacy narrative that I will distribute today. In class on Monday, I will distribute a second student literacy narrative, and in groups, you and your classmates will assess the two. If you were absent today or misplaced your copy of “Creativity is Key,” download a copy from Blackboard and print it.

Coming Soon

Next Wednesday will be devoted to revision work. I will return your literacy narrative drafts, and you will then have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting to Blackboard and WordPress. The due date for your literacy narrative is Wednesday, September 9, before class; the hard deadline is Friday, September 11, before class.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” . . .

Posted on August 24, 2026August 23, 2026 by janemlucas

This morning in class, after your Scrabble debriefing, we will examine David Sedari s‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” and you and two or three of your classmates will collaborate on an exercise that involves identifying an instance of tension in the essay. Locating such a moment in another writer’s work provides you with a model for creating tension in your own story, which is key to maintaining the reader’s interest and propelling the narrative forward.

Your group will also identify a minimum of three talking points in Sedaris’s essay. Those points may concern any parts of the narrative you have questions about or any passages that you deem particularly interesting or revealing. I will include those points in tomorrow’s class notes.

Sedaris rose to prominence in 1992 after National Public Radio broadcast his essay “Santaland Diaries,” which chronicles his stint as an elf at Macy’s flagship store in New York. That essay is included in his collection Holidays on Ice (1997). “Me Talk Pretty One Day” is the title essay in his 2000 collection, which you will have the opportunity to win in today’s class drawing.

Sedaris’s current reading tour includes a performance at Greensboro’s Tanger Center on October 28.

Scrabble Debriefings

Starting today, at the beginning of class on Mondays, I will return your Scrabble score sheets from Friday, and you and your group members will participate in a Scrabble debriefing in which you will (1) review and discuss your game, and (2) individually compose journal entries on the game. Questions to address include, but are not limited to, the ones on the handout that I will distribute this morning in class. Those questions for consideration are also listed below.

Did you learn any new words from your teammate or from your opponents? If so, what were they? If you did not look up their meanings after class and record them in your journal, look them up and record their meanings now.
What plays involved analyzing multiple options? Did your team opt not to make the highest-scoring play possible in order to either (1) block your opponent, or (2) keep letters that might enable you to score more points later?
Where did creative problem-solving figure in the game? If your team had a rack of all consonants or vowels–or mostly consonants or vowels–how were you able to advance the game by playing only one or two letters?
What was the largest number of words formed in a single play and what were they?
Scrabble, like writing, is a process of composing, only the board game involves composing smaller units, words rather than sentences and paragraphs. What parallels, if any, can you draw between your Scrabble play and your writing process?

You will have the opportunity to draw on the journal entries that you write during debriefings when you compose your midterm and final reflections for the course. If you choose Scrabble as the focus of your annotated bibliography and preface, you may incorporate portions of your Scrabble debriefings into that assignment as well.

Next Up

In class on Wednesday, you will begin drafting your first major writing assignment longhand. The assignment, a literacy narrative, is an account of a learning experience involving reading, writing, or learning to speak a language. As part of your prewriting process, look back at “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and consider how you might incorporate some of the same elements David Sedaris includes.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: “What’s in a Name?”

Posted on August 21, 2026 by janemlucas

Section 1 (L-R): Bridgett Murphy, Oliver Henderson, Michael McNamara, Claire Jahnke

To help us put names with faces, I have included in this post pictures of all of you in sections one and eight with picture captions that list your names. I encourage you to review this page frequently. In between the pictures, I have included lists of first names that are also common nouns, making them playable in Scrabble.

Al: a type of East Indian tree
Alan: a breed of hunting dog (also aland, alant)
Alec: a herring
Ally: an advocate
Ana: a collection of miscellany about a specific topic
Ananda: extreme happiness
Anna: a former Indian coin
Ava: at all, of all

Section 1 (L-R): Kel Wadley, Grace Duffy, Hayden Porter, Sebastian Olander

Bailey: an outer castle wall
Barbie: a barbecue
Belle: a pretty woman
Ben: an inner room
Benny: an amphetamine pill
Bertha: a style of wide collar
Beth: a Hebrew letter
Biff: to hit
Bill: to charge for goods
Billy: a short club
Bo: a friend
Bobby: a policeman
Bonnie: pretty (also bonny)
Brad: a small nail or tack
Brock: a badger

Section 1 (L-R): Alexis Zavalishin, Baylee Shattenberg, Nicole Halucka, Ryder Pitek

Calla: a tropical plant
Cam: a rotating or sliding piece of machinery
Carl: a peasant or manual laborer (also carle)
Carol: to sing merrily
Celeste: a percussive keyboard instrument (also celesta)
Chad: a scrap of paper
Charlie: a fool
Chase: to pursue
Chevy: to chase (also chivy)
Christie: a type of turn in skiing (also christy)
Clarence: an enclosed carriage
Cole: a plant of the cabbage family
Dalton: a unit of atomic mass
Dagwood: a large, stuffed sandwich
Daphne: a flowering shrub with poisonous berries
Davy: a safety lamp
Deb: a debutante
Dev: deva, a Hindu god
Devon: a breed of cattle
Dexter: located to the right
Dom: a title given to some monks
Don: to put on a piece of clothing
Donna: an Italian woman of repute
Erica: a shrub of the heath family

Section 1 (L-R): Madi Stone, Brenna Murphy, Gavin Godfrey-Ryan

Fay: to join together closely
Florence: a former European gold coin
Franklin: a nonnoble medieval English landowner
Fritz: a nonworking or semi-functioning state
Gi: a white garment worn in martial arts
Gilbert: a unit of magneto-motive force
Gilly: to transport on a type of train car
Grace: ease and fluidity of movement or manner
Graham: whole-wheat flour
Hank: to secure a sail
Haven: a shelter
Henry: a unit of electric inductance
Herby: full of herbs
Jack: to hoist with a type of lever
Jacky: a sailor
Jake: okay, satisfactory
Jane: a girl or woman
Jay: any of various birds, known for their crests and shrill calls
Jean: denim
Jenny: a female donkey
Jerry: a German soldier
Jess: to fasten a strap around the leg of a bird in falconry (also Jesse)

Section 1 (L-R): Madison Haugk, Kai Jarvis, Olivia Lavallee

Jill: a unit of measure equal to to 1/4 of a pint
Jimmy: to pry open
Joannes: a Portugese coin (also johannes)
Joe: a fellow
Joey: a young kangaroo
John: a toilet
Johnny: a hospital gown
Jones: a strong desire
Jordan: a type of container
Joseph: a woman’s long cloak
Josh: to tease
Kelly: a bright shade of green
Kelvin: a unit of absolute temperature
Ken: to know
Kent: past tense of ken
Kerry: a breed of cattle
Kris: a curved dagger
Lance: a spearlike weapon
Lars: plural of lar, a type of ancient Roman guardian deity (also lares)
Lassie: a lass
Laura: an aggregation of hermitages used by monks
Laurel: to crown one’s head with a wreath
Lee: to shelter from the wind
Louie: a lieutenant
Louis: a former gold coin of France worth twenty francs

Section 8 (L-R): Devyn Jones, Dev Broomer, Zach Roseman, Sophia Stewart

Marcel: to make waves in the hair using a special iron
Marge: a margin
Mark: a line, figure, or symbol
Martin: any type of the bird also known as a swallow
Marvy: marvelous
Matilda (a hobo’s bundle (chiefly Australian)
Matt: to put a dull finish on (also matte)
Maxwell: a unit of magnetic flux
Mel: honey
Melody: an agreeable succession of musical sounds
Merle: a blackbird
Mickey: a drugged drink
Mike: a microphone (also mic)
Milt: to fertilize with fish sperm
Minny: a minnow
Mo: a moment
Molly: a type of tropical fish
Morgan: a unit of frequency in genetics
Morris: a type of folk dance from England
Morse: describing a type of code made of long and short signals
Mort: a note sounded in hunting to announce the death of prey

Section 8 (L-R): Mackenzie Mossa, Avery Broadbent, Vivian Laliberte, Ariana Foy

Nelson: a type of wrestling hold
Newton: the unit of force required to accelerate one kilogram of mass on meter per second
Nick: to make a shallow cut
Norm: a standard
Pam: the name of the jack of clubs in some card games
Parker: one who parks a motorized vehicle
Peter: to lessen gradually
Pia: a fine membrane of the brain and spinal cord
Randy: sexually excited
Regina: a queen
Rex: a king
Rick: to stack, hay, corn, or straw
Roger: the pirate flag

Section 8 (L-R): Lance Morgan, Skylar Bowry, Parker Davenport, Rocco Marcello

Sal: salt
Sally: to make a brief trip or a sudden start
Sawyer: one who saws wood
Shawn: past tense of show
Sheila: a girl or young woman
Sol: the fifth note on a diatonic scale (also so)
Sonny: a boy or young man
Sophy: a former Persian ruler
Spencer: a type of sail
Tad: a young boy
Tammie: a fabric used in linings (also tammy)
Ted: to spread for drying
Teddy: a woman’s one-piece undergarment
Terry: a soft, absorbent type of cloth
Tiffany: a thin, mesh fabric
Timothy: a Eurasian grass used for grazing

Section 8 (L-R): Mariah Robinson, Cole Wilhelmsen, Kathleen Barr, Leslie Arreola Mendoza

Toby: a drinking mug in the shape of a man or a man’s face
Tod: a British unit of weight for wool equal to twenty-eight pounds
Tom: the male of various animals
Tommy: a loaf or chunk of bread
Tony: very stylish
Vera: very
Victoria: a light, four-wheeled carriage
Warren: an area where rabbits live, or a crowded maze-like place
Webster: one who weaves
Will: to choose, decree, or induce to happen
Willow: a tree or shrub
Willy: to clean fibers with a certain machine

Section 8 (L-R): Layla Rothberg, Ryan Lofton, Marisol Moreno

Bonus Assignment Opportunity!

Students who correctly respond to the playable first names and last names question below will earn a bonus assignment credit, which means they will have an extra assignment in the short assignments (course work) category. Completing a bonus assignment such as this one will offset a low class exercise or pop quiz grade.

How many students in English 1103.1 and 8 have first and/or last names that are playable Scrabble words? Keep in mind that only playable first names appear in the lists above. Some students in each section may have playable last names as well.

Directions for Finding and Submitting Your Answer

Review the list of playable first names, compare it with the students’ first and last names in the photo captions above, or on the class page, and determine which of the students’ first and last names are playable in Scrabble. If you aren’t sure whether a name is also a common noun, you can consult the Merriam Webster’s Scrabble Dictionary site. The spelling of the name must be identical to the spelling of the common noun. Homophones with different spellings don’t count.
Compose a response of one or more complete sentences that includes the first and last name of each student with a playable name. Indicate which name, first or last, is playable.
Post your comment as a reply to this blog post by 7:30 a.m. on Monday, August 24.
To post your comment, click the title of the post, “What’s in a Name. . . . ,” then scroll down to the bottom of the post. There you will see the image of an airmail envelope with a white rectangular box for your comment. Type your comment in the box and hit return. Voila! You have submitted your answer. Good luck! I will make the comments visible before class on Monday, August 24.

Next Up

For class on Monday, you will read and annotate David Sedaris‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” which I distribuded in class today. An additional copy is posted in the readings folder on Blackboard. We will examine Sedaris’s essay as a model for your own literacy narrative: a personal account of one of your experiences with reading, writing, or learning to speak a language. You will begin drafting your literacy narratives in class on Wednesday.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Parallel Play and Two-Letter Words Beginning with “A” . . .

Posted on August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 by janemlucas

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 knowledge and that of your teammate.

You may think of Scrabble solely as a game that increases players’ word power, but it also fosters creative problem-solving skills and foresight. And for those who play in teams, as you will in English 1103, it offers exercises in collaboration. Through my own research on the game, I have learned that college faculty in a variety of disciplines incorporate Scrabble into their classes, including an English professor at California State University-Monterey Bay, a professor of Christian education at MidAmerica Nazarene University, and a professor of engineering at Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia.

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)

Recording Scores

The image of the hypothetical game below includes seven words that were spelled in the players’ first two turns. Examine the scoresheet beside it and note how the scores are recorded.

Because both teams played multiple words in their second turn, those words are recorded in the same space. Each cell is for a single turn, not a single word. The second line in each score column is for the score of the second play. The line that follows the plus-sign line is for the total. Maintaining a running tally enables all the players to see the current scores at a glance.

For the task of completing the scoresheet, select the team member with the best penmanship. Make sure that the writer you appoint records the first and last names of each group member, the section number, and the date. After a blank tile is played, the writer should write the designated letter in the box provided (see the two boxes near the top of the sheet). Remember that the designated letter for a blank cannot change once the letter has been played and recorded on the score sheet.

Important Note about Challenges

If you think that the opposing team has played a word that isn’t permissible, 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.

The Scrabble socks pictured above were a Christmas gift that I will wear for the first time tomorrow. To commemorate our Wordplay Days, I will sport these socks each Friday.

Matters of Style

MLA (Modern Language Association) style, the standard format used for writing and documentation in the humanities, is the style that you will use for paper assignments in English 1103.

Formatting a paper in MLA style requires changing the font because Times New Roman, used in MLA papers, is not the default font in Microsoft Word. You will also need to create a running header that includes both your last name and the page number. If you do not know how to change a font or create a running header, this YouTube video on MLA page set-up will show you how.

For additional models of MLA style, see the sample essays posted on Blackboard and the MLA Style center’s sample essays, including this one by Holly Nelson, an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University.

Bonus Assignment

As practice in both revision and MLA formatting, complete the assignment below. Students who do so will earn a bonus assignment credit in the short assignments and participation category.

Directions

Revise the introductory reflective writing that you began in class on August 17. If your literacy narrative will focus on one of the classes that you wrote about in your reflection, do not include that class; the content of your bonus assignment should be markedly different from the content of your literacy narrative. You do not need to begin with a paragraph of summary followed by a paragraph of commentary. Those specifics were included in your reflective assignment so I could assess your understanding of the differences between the two and your ability to follow directions.
Compose a revision of at least two-hundred and fifty words, and type it into a Microsoft Word document that you have formatted to comply with MLA style. If you are unsure of how to change the formatting in a file, revisit the second paragraph of this blog post.
Print a copy of your file, and submit your paper copy at the beginning of class on Monday, August 24. You will not submit a copy online. Posting to Blackboard and WordPress is a requirement for your three major writing assignments only. However, if you want to publish your bonus assignment on your blog as practice in using WordPress, you are welcome to do so.

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, look to the Merriam-Webster’s Scrabble Word Finder page, and review this post.