What Do Players Learn?
LinguiSHTIK challenges players to improve their grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and writing skills. Players learn to compose better sentences with proper grammar application. They also use richer vocabulary as they compete against others using the strategies available in this cube game.
All grade levels play with the same set of procedural rules; however, each division’s level of competition introduces increasingly more difficult grammatical concepts for the players to use. Competitors are challenged to enhance their vocabulary and grammar skills in increasingly creative ways. Players usually learn more from applying their knowledge in the competition than they do in their normal classroom studies, especially when their curriculum often does not include grammar study.
Elementary Division (grades 6 and below) players concentrate on six of the eight basic parts of speech—noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, and interjection. They compose sentences from various patterns, structures, and purposes. They learn to use limited functions, such as predicate noun, collective nouns, and simple tense verbs. They also learn what a phrase or clause is and how to include them in their sentences.
Middle Division (grades 8 and below) players continue to use everything that is available to the Elementary Division. Their base of knowledge increases with the addition of pronouns and conjunctions, as well as all the functions of each of the eight parts of speech. They add inverted sentence as a pattern and expand the general demands to include, for instance, indefinite or interrogative pronouns, infinitives and participles and gerunds, infinitive phrases or clauses, and many other grammatical ideas.
Junior Division (grades 10 and below) players have all that is available from the lower divisions and also add more sentence structures and an expanded list of functions and general demands. Using the more complex clauses and phrases available at this level becomes a part of their strategy for success.
Senior Division (grades 12 and below) players at this highest level of play have all that is available from the lower divisions and those additional functions and demands which add a challenging level of complexity to the sentences they write.
How Do You Play?
LinguiSHTIK is played with 23 lettered cubes on a two-sectioned mat – Letters or Demands. Each match involves three players from different schools. Many such matches occur simultaneously and last for 35 minutes. Depending upon the time scheduled, two or three such matches can take place on a given day. Players use the Order of Play sheet that is specified for their division.
Player One shakes and rolls the cubes and orders the letters on the tops of the cubes so that all three players may see them. Player One chooses a sentence pattern, structure, or purpose. That choice defines the sentence that each player must ultimately compose and write.
Player Two then chooses a Type Demand which determines the part of speech for the “word to be formed” by each player in the sentence that is written.
Player Three then chooses a Function Demand which determines how that part of speech will be used in the sentence that is written.
From this point on, each player in turn may play one of the cubes to the mat in either the Letters section or the Demands section. If the cube is added to the Letters section, the letter on the top of that cube is possible to be used in the word to be formed. If a black or green cube is added to the Demands section, the letter on the top of the cube is Forbidden to be used in the word to be formed AND the moving player must add a demand to the word based on the general demands listed on the Order of Play sheet.
Players continue to add cubes to the mat until one of the players feels there are enough letters available to make the word specified. Following all the rules listed in the LinguiSHTIK Tournament Rules (available on this website), a player makes a Challenge, and scoring is completed for that “shake.” In addition to the Tournament Rules, there is an official dictionary and grammar text used by certified judges to settle disputes.
As the play evolves in a single “shake,” a player may have to compose and revise several sentences based on the moves or demands made by opponents. Authentic learning takes place as the players compose and write in real-time.
How Do I Get the Academic Games, Rules, and Study Materials?
Check the links here to view and print the most recent Tournament Rules and/or to obtain the study materials that have been written by experienced coaches over decades. Detailed game procedures, definitions, and sentence examples are available in the LinguiSHTIK Handbook and Judges Manual.
The LinguiSHTIK game kit may be purchased from the Accelerated Learning Foundation. For competitions, each school must bring one LinguiSHTIK game kit for every three players that will compete.
Academic Games and study materials remain the property of the purchasing school. If cared for, they will last for decades for practices and competitions. The LinguiSHTIK game kit has not changed for decades, much as the basic materials involved in an athletic competition do not change.
The official tournament rules are modified slightly every year based upon suggestions from member leagues and the national committee composed of certified judges for this game.
NOTE: As significant changes were made in summer 2024 in the distribution of topics across divisions, coaches should refer to the new Order of Play sheets for each division.