How to play the Democs Game

Step 1: Setting the scene
(5 mins)

Students arrive and are seated in groups of five to eight. Explain the game and what happens to the results. Check that students have done the homework (i.e. read the information sheet, answered the questions and voted).

Step 2: Conversation guidelines
(5 mins)

Read out the conversation guidelines. Hand out the Yellow card. Explain the use of Blank cards. Appoint a Card Dealer for each table.

Step 3: Gather information
(10 mins)

Deal out all the Information cards. Each player selects two that are important and relevant to the voting positions. Players retain their chosen cards and place the discards to one side.

Step 4: What are the issues?
(10 mins)

Deal out all the Issue cards . Players select two each. Players pass their discarded Issue cards to the left. Players read all their cards and select two, so eachplayer chooses two cards only. Players take turns to read out their two selected Issue cards. What do they think and feel about these cards? They retain their chosen cards and place the discards to one side.

Step 5: Challenge yourself
(5 mins)

Deal out one Challenge card to each player. Follow the instructions.

Step 6: Cluster to identify what matters
(15 mins)

Group together the chosen Issue cards and Information cards into themes. Add Story cards to these clusters. Write the cluster names on the blank Cluster cards. Note down the numbers of the Information, Issue and Story cards that make up each Cluster. Keep Cluster cards separate for each game played.

Step 7: Vote
(5 mins)

Each player votes on the voting positions. Any new policies?

Step 8: Summary and feedback
(5 mins)

Summary of vote. Any questions? Feedback from students on how they found playing Democs. Fill in the game results and teacher feedback, and send back to nef .