Good answer! Good answer! The old History Feud from my ToolBook days is back, rebuilt for the browser and renamed Student Feud. Two groups, one board, five top answers, three strikes. And this time the host is a blind poet who has been telling stories for about 2,800 years.
Meanwhile, Backstage on Mount Olympus…
Homer is warming up behind his marble podium. In walks Marty Fairweather, who hosted a 1978 afternoon game show called Pass the Peanuts that nobody remembers, and Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, carrying a clipboard.
Marty: Homer, baby! Love the columns. Love the torches. But a blind host? How do you know when somebody hits the board?
Homer: Marty, I composed the Iliad without writing a word down. I can hear a strike from Sparta.
Thalia: He also has a buzzer. Three of them, actually. The little boxes under the answer line.
Marty: So walk me through it. Family of five from Ohio, they hug, they clap…
Homer: No families. Two groups of students. The challengers try to name all five answers on the board, one guess at a time. Three strikes and the returning champions win the round.
Marty: And the survey? Who did you survey? A hundred people in a studio audience?
Thalia: He surveyed a hundred Athenians in the agora. Socrates answered every question with another question, so they threw his card out.
Homer: Ask them to name five Greek gods. Zeus is number one, forty points. Poseidon sits at number three.
Marty: Where’s Athena? Athena’s got the whole city named after her!
Homer: Survey says…
Thalia: Marty, you’re not a contestant. Sit down.
Marty: Okay, okay. But here’s my question, and it’s a big one. What happens when the teacher is done with Greece?
Homer: Ah. That is the best part. Watch this.
The Teacher Backdoor
Every good game show has a producer behind the curtain. In Student Feud, the teacher opens Teacher Setup by holding Ctrl+Shift and clicking the STUDENT FEUD sign at the top of the board. From there you can rename the set, rename the host, and edit, delete, or add your own “Name five…” challenges. Changes save in your browser.
It comes loaded with twelve Ancient Greece challenges: philosophers, gods and goddesses, famous Greeks, city-states, battles, contributions to civilization, mythology creatures, Sparta, Athens, places, architecture and art, and great writings. Swap in the Civil War, the Constitution, or chapter 4 vocabulary, and Homer will host it just the same. Students can type an answer or click Speak and say it out loud.
Marty: So the teacher can change every question, and the old man still gets the gig?
Homer: Marty, I have been the host for twenty-eight centuries. I am not worried about my contract.
Thalia: Let’s play the Feud!
A Little Game Show History
Family Feud premiered on ABC in 1976 with Richard Dawson, who had been a panelist on Gene Rayburn’s Match Game before Goodson-Todman handed him his own show and his famous “Survey says!” Steve Harvey has hosted it since 2010. Fifty years later it’s still on the air, and the reason is simple: everybody in the room plays along. That’s exactly what I want in a classroom.
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