In English teacher Kathleen Mathis’ classes, she is always creating new and innovative ways to enhance the learning experience for students and to add more fun and entertainment in classroom lessons.

This year, English classes will take part in a hallway game that goes along with lessons based on the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. The activity is in updated version of what took place past school year. While Mathis’ and Justina Butera’s English classes read Julius Caesar, the teacher’s thought of a new way to review material from the book.

“We were learning about the forms of persuasion in Julius Caesar and put together a game that would put those skills and terms to use in a competitive way,” Mathis said.

The idea for the game came from the Food Network show “Guy’s Grocery Games” where the culinary skills of contestants are put to the test as they race through store food aisles collecting items.

Mathis’ version of the game last year featured two mini-shopping carts where students formed teams and then ran up and down the English hallway collecting pieces of paper with forms of persuasion written on them.

After collecting the paper slips, groups had 10 minutes to prepare an impromptu speech where they had to implement all of the terms they collected into their speech.

Although the game was successful last year, the teachers looked to change up the game this year to make it more similar to “Guy’s Grocery Games.”

“I realized that the shopping carts alone didn’t really make a good grocery game,” Mathis said. “I wanted to have something where cans of food would have the paper slips attached to them rather than having students collect the paper slips alone.”

Additionally, along with the help Tech Specialist Jennifer Cory, more students will be able to participate as the game will include four shopping carts this year which have been borrowed from a local Trader Joe’s store.

Not only will the game this year further aid students in their learning, but cans that have been collected by students will be donated to the AHS Pantry located in the Parent Resource Center.

“We thought that if we were going to bring in food, we should also put it towards a good cause,” Mathis said.

With over 500 cans and boxes of non-perishable foods already brought in to be donated by English students,

items will be collected until Spring break. Additionally, Trader Joe’s will be donated $50 worth of non-perishable food items to the Food Pantry as well.

“I love that students are excited that they have the opportunity to help others in a fun way,” Mathis said.