The Shakespeare Insult Kit

During this segment, the children are placed in a single line facing a another opposite them made up of the LSW: Junior Inter-ACT team members.   They are asked if they have ever felt the urge to insult their teachers, parents, siblings, bus conductors, etc., to which they usually squell excitedly in the affirmative.   They are then told that, on this occasion only, that they will be allowed to do just that.  (SHOCK & APPLAUSE are like now to be the order of the day) [Please note:   Teachers usually get in the queue alongside the sacrificial actors!]  One by one each child steps forward in front of the line of their peers (beginning with one end and ending with the other) and face a terror filled adult member immediately opposite who, in turn, fronts their team.  Having constructed their devistating insult from The Shakespeare Insult Kit such as illustrated below (Thou + One Word from Column 1 + One Word from Column 2 + One Word from Column 3), all the children repeat it.  Then the adults, in a frightening chorus, respond 'NAAAA' and the adult member then creates an original, contemporary insult (You + Something + Something + Something), after which the cycle is repeated, the kids go 'NAAA' and two more adversaries step up to bat.  Thus it is, in excellent spirits of good humour, until all have had their turn.  

We hope through the fun of this excercise to illustrate to the children, without enforcement, that languae is not only their friend, but a vitally cruical tool to be employed with care in their everyday life.  I am certain there are probably a few mothers later that same evening who will wish that we hadn't bothered.   If so, the point will have been well made!

Thou ….