Two truths and a lie is a commonly used ice breaker, in which everyone says two truths and a lie about themselves and the other people guess which is the lie. The following is a modification of an idea suggested by Sharon Ratliff
Ratliff suggests using the same strategy as a way of reinforcing/mini-testing students’ understanding of concepts being taught.
Students are provided with 3 sentences about the topic they have been studying, two of which are true and one which is not true. Students have to determine the lie and rewrite it so it is true. See the example below:
The mother took her two children to the park to play on the swings. In this sentence:
- ‘Mother’ is a noun.
- ‘Play’ is a noun.
- ‘Swings’ is a noun.
Students would need to identify that ‘play’ is not a noun in this sentence but is a verb.
In terms of literacy, you could also use it to revise:
- Graphemes representing a particular phoneme.
- Meaning of vocabulary being learned. This could be providing definitions, synonyms or antonyms.
- Grammar based activities such as the same verb tense used in all sentences or the subject correctly matching the verb.
- Correct/incorrect spelling of words being learned.
- Correct/incorrect application of a spelling rule.
- Identifying subjects, objects, predicates.
- A mini comprehension activity, especially one requiring inferences to be made. See the following examples:
It was Mother’s Day on Sunday. Sue wondered if her mother would like a necklace. She gave the jeweller her bankcard, but he soon handed back the card, shook his head and said, “Payment declined.”
- Sue is buying a necklace as a Mother’s Day present.
- Sue is buying the necklace at a jewellery shop.
- Sue paid for the necklace using her bankcard.
A cloud can be keb. A piece of paper can be keb. A snowman is keb.
- Chairs are always keb.
- Some flowers can be keb.
- Vanilla ice cream is keb.
Which behaviours indicate the farmer was mean?
- He hired a worker to harvest the wheat.
- No-one would work for him.
- He didn’t let the workers stop for lunch.
Identifying if a sentence is a fact or an opinion.
Identifying the emotion depicted by an action.
Obviously, you can flip the strategy and have students create the two truths and a lie or you can have two lies and one truth.