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Scholastic
Chess Club Meetings
A General Framework
By Prof.
Chester Nuhmentz
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This article begins with sketches of how scholastic chess meetings are often
organized. The various parts of a typical elementary school club meeting are
then discussed in greater detail, with an emphasis on activities and materials
that can be used with a broad spectrum of chess students.
Sketches of Typical Chess Club Meetings
Here's a meeting outline that can work well for many school chess clubs:
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Snack (10 minutes)
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Brief general instruction (10 minutes)
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Divide students into teams for the day (1 minute)
-
Team quiz (10 minutes)
-
Introduce activities for between-round practice (2 minutes)
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Round 1 games (25 minutes)
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Round 2 games (25 minutes)
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Announcements for prizes, assignments, next meeting
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Clean-up
Training-oriented meetings for elementary students might look more like this:
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Snack (10 minutes)
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Collect and review homework (10 minutes)
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Full group instructional activity (15 minutes)
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Introduce activities for between-game practice (5 minutes)
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Small group lessons / chess games (three 15 minute sessions)
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Assign new homework (2 minutes)
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Clean-up
Equipment and materials useful for these meetings:
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Snack items (often supplied by parent volunteers, following school
guidelines)
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Suitable tables (cafeteria, library, science lab, art room)
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Chess boards and pieces (quality sets are available in bulk from several
vendors; one set for each student is ideal for instructional purposes)
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Chess score sheets for recording games
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Demonstration chess board or chess transparencies and an overhead projector
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Chess clocks or timers
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Three-ring binders for students
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Printed chess exercises for between-game and home practice
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Items for tournament-style play: pairing sheets, team flags, prizes
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Items for evaluating and recognizing student progress
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If possible, computers with chess software and Internet access
A Closer Look at the Elements of a Chess Club
Meeting
How difficult it will be to gather the items listed above and prepare for a
meeting will depend on how established a club is, the level of chess expertise
possessed by the adult mentors, the size of the club, and other variables. Yet
there are preparations that are almost universally helpful. Let's walk through
the two hypothetical meeting agendas once more, this time with more detail.
Warm-Up Quizzes
Before handing out the chess sets, having a short verbal quiz at the beginning
of a meeting is a good way to transition into chess activities. A quiz also
provide an informal opportunity to introduce instructional concepts. (For
example,
here are two quizzes that each have items about knight moves and forks.)
Visualization quizzes can be devised with a minimum of props. For example, the
names of the 64 chess squares can be written on the backs of business cards
(cheerfully donated by parents) and stored in a box. Any number of quiz
questions can then be devised using these cards. For example, for a quiz related
to knight moves, a student volunteer could draw two cards from the box. The two
squares written on the backs of the cards would be announced. Then students
would race to determine the minimum number of moves needed to move a knight from
the first square to the second. If forks are being discussed, the task for the
students might be to name EVERY square from which a queen could attack both of
the drawn squares.
Advanced students can be required to observe the speak-move rule of chess
instruction. Just like learning to not touch a piece until all calculations are
done, students can be asked to withhold giving an answer unless they have the
question completely solved. Under this rule, advanced students can answer "How
many possible checks does White have?" by stating the grand total, but cannot
answer by listing checks as they find them.
Scoring systems for quizzes can be handled in many ways:
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No points -- simply ask questions and congratulate each student who answers
correctly first.
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Award points based on the amount of time elapsed before the correct answer
is given. For example, suppose students are given a maximum of 30 seconds to
answer each question. A student who provides the correct answer
instantaneously would receive 30 points. Answers given after 10 seconds
elapsed would be worth 20 points.
-
Points based on difficulty of the problem -- "hard" problems might be worth
twice as much as "easy" ones. On visualization quizzes, students who choose
to solve problems with their eyes closed can be made eligible to receive
double the points of students who are able to look at or manipulate a chess
board.
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Bonus rounds -- certain questions may be arbitrarily given special value
before they are asked. For example, the last three questions might be worth
double or triple the points of earlier questions.
The emphasis of contests should, of course, clearly be on developing chess
skills. Once students have become engrossed in the inherent intrigue of chess,
there's little need to direct their attention to tasks which will help them
improve their game. Quizzes and similar games that include simple non-intrusive
motivators can help larger groups maintain focus on chess skills -- especially
students who tend to be distractable due to maturity or low interest in chess.
Organizing Games Between Club Members
Without a system for pushing club members to play against a variety of
opponents, the natural tendency is for cliques to form where students repeatedly
play within small circles of friends. Once such cliques are established, when a
player does seek a game against a new opponent it's often for the wrong reason
-- to score an easy win at the expense of a younger, weaker player. For player
development and team morale, it's usually best for club directors to frequently
take control of pairings for games at meetings.
Besides chess sets, handy items to have for club games are score sheets, pairing
forms, and chess clocks. For instructional use, a variety of styles for score
sheet are useful:
Pairing sheets can also be
basic or enhanced. Extra features make it easier for instructors to set
handicaps between players or to specify certain opening moves that the players
should use.
A lot of chess coaches have a love-hate relationship with chess clocks when
working with young students. Beginners inevitably play excessively fast and
increase their blunders-per-game ratio when using a clock. Chess clocks and any
form of blitz chess are best avoided until students are consistently studying
their options throughout their games. If two young players with impulsive styles
desparately want to use a clock, have them use it in the opposite manner as
usual. Give each player 30 minutes, and instruct each player to hit the OTHER
PLAYER'S button after making a move. A player is not eligible to win the game
unless he or she has used at least a certain amount of time -- e.g., 5 minutes
total or an average of 15 seconds per move.
Once students have demonstrated that they habitually look for threats of
captures and checks before touching a piece, chess clocks become an important
training tool for promoting accurate calculations that are performed with
efficient use of time. Clocks are also invaluable for bringing an orderly finish
to games that must be brought to a close so the group can move to the next round
or activity.
It can add to the excitement of club games to divide players into teams that are
approximately equal in playing strength. Players should be grouped differently
for each meeting, and along different criteria (e.g., occasionally it might be
"4th Grade vs. The World").
Team flags can be a nice option. As games are played during a meeting, both
individual and team points are collected using the standard 1, 0.5, 0 point
system for wins, draws, and losses. After the games have finished for a meeting,
all players on the team with the most points can be given a
Championship Team card. This system can complement one for recognizing
individual achievements. New players usually have little hope of doing well in
individual rankings but, by also offering team points, everyone can have a
chance to win a team card.
Many chess instructors either prefer or insist that their students not use club
meeting time to play alternative games that use chess sets, such as Bughouse or
Siamese chess. Since these variant games don't contribute to the development of
chess skills, this seems to be a reasonable position. An alternative way of
playing chess that's not only novel but beneficial for chess training is
blindfolded chess. Please take a look at these
Skittles cards to see a simple way that blindfolded chess can be made
accessible to intermediate and advanced students.
Instructional Activities for the Entire Club
One of the most alluring features of chess is its ability to fascinate and
challenge those who have studied it for a lifetime AND those who have studied it
for only an hour. Unlike math problems, many chess positions can pose satisfying
challenges for both novice and accomplished players. The arrangement of chessmen
at the beginning of a game is a position that invites -- demands -- study by
novice and grandmaster alike.
With a little creativity, lessons can be developed that beginning students can
work on right beside advanced students. For example, please look at this
worksheet for finding checkmating patterns. The student's job is to
identify all the ways two chessmen can be placed on the board to put Black in
checkmate. Beginners working on this task should proceed slowly and may put
actual chessmen on the paper to help them find each solution. Advanced students
should solve the problems using only their imaginations. They should be required
to work quickly, but not answer until they have found every possible solution.
New information can be conveyed in these situations without boring some students
and frustrating others. The attention of beginners might be directed to a pin in
a position; intermediate students may be interested in a common name for the
same position -- "that's the famous Heisman Mate!"; advanced students may be
able to see how a certain checkmate is likely to arise from a certain type of
middlegame pattern or opening.
Questions that require incrementally more visualization are possible for most
positions that are not mate-in-one. Beginners may be asked to describe the
here-and-now situation on the board (e.g., describing immediate possible
captures and checks) and gradually formulate a list of candidate moves. More
experienced players can be asked to look deeper into potential sequences of
moves to see which candidate moves hold up against tactical and positional
considerations.
Toward the end of full-group instruction, assignments can be given to enable
students to continue the lesson at a level appropriate for their skills. See the
section below on "Between-Round and Home Practice" for more discussion about
this.
Small Group Instruction
Teaching chess in the schools provides a sure-fire way to acquire appreciation,
empathy, and respect for educators. In many ways, the situation is ideal --
eager, motivated students with interested, supportive parents. Even with these
advantages, the instructional portion of chess clubs is often an exercise in
triage, figuring out how to spread limited resources as effectively as possible.
Adults in charge of meetings must decide whether to give their attention to
novices just learning the game, advanced students who are finding fewer
challenges at the club level, or the middle group of players.
The pool of potential chess teachers for school clubs is nearly always
miniscule. One common response to this problem is to recruit older students who
have strong chess and interpersonal skills act as tutors for less advanced
students. Other ways that clubs compensate for the lack of adult teachers are
using instructional video tapes, computer programs, and books or worksheets.
Whatever instructional style is used, elementary-grade students most
successfully apply chess theory to their games when lessons are focused on a
single clear idea and are followed immediately by an opportunity to apply that
concept over the board. The central idea of a lesson can be introduced by an
instructor or video; practiced under structured conditions (on the board,
computer, or worksheets); then targeted for attention during actual games.
Suppose one instructor is available at a club meeting for 18 students. The
instructor would like to provide small group lessons at three levels of
difficulty. One way to approach this situation would be to first divide the
group into two teams of 9 players. The two teams would be reasonably matched
according to playing strength. Then each team would be divided into thirds by
playing strength. The two teams would play three rounds of games against each
other. During the first round, the most advanced third of students from each
team would receive a lesson instead of playing a game. During the second round,
the intermediate third would receive their lesson. And the weakest third of
players from each team would have a group lesson while the stronger players
complete the day's mini-tournament. (After finishing their lesson, the advanced
students might play one longer round of games rather than two shorter rounds.)
Between-Round and Home Practice
In the majority of scholastic chess clubs, we adults facilitate progress rather
than directly cause it. Once students develop a fascination for the game, they
tend to push their own progress -- often our biggest challenge is to avoid
dampening their enthusiasm or growth. Providing material and opportunities for
student progress, rather than presenting detailed lessons, is the primary task
of most amateur coaches. When students are not receiving direct instruction or
playing chess, for example between games at meetings, is the ideal time to
create these opportunities.
Ideas that have been introduced in formal lessons can be greatly expanded and
extended through worksheets that students use while waiting for their next game
at club meetings, at home, or anytime they're not expected to be doing something
else. For example, suppose that the topic for a club meeting is a review of
principles for strong opening play. As follow-up, beginners could be assigned to
play chess using
KINGO score sheets while more advanced students might be given problems from
Crimes and Punishments. All students could be assigned appropriate homework
from
Twenty Questions.
One of the trickiest times to manage a scholastic chess meeting is the point
where there are several students who are between games, and are waiting for
other games to finish. If a game finishes significantly sooner than the rest of
the field is expected to, usually the players involved can switch colors and
play again. Some instruction or handicapping may be necessary to prevent a
series of lopsided outcomes.
Another alternative is to have the players start a new battle from an endgame
position. There are many benefits to having students practice from both winning
and losing endgame positions. Beginners need to practice forcing a lone king
into mate using a king and queen. They also need to learn the importance of
trying to keep their king in the middle and to fight for a stalemate if on the
losing side. The specific position can be as straightforward or as subtle as
appropriate for the players involved.
Chess Meets Hangman is a useful tool for adding structure to this type of
exercise.
Some scholastic chess programs offer a series of skill classifications that
students may advance through -- similar to advancing through belt colors in the
martial arts. One peripheral advantage of such a system is that is provides
another source of chess-oriented activity for students to concentrate on while
waiting for games. Criteria for advancing from one level to the next can be
summarized by
simple checklists, or by a more
thorough set of requirements. Upon completion of a level, players might
receive a
certificate, or a
card, or some other tangible symbol that will mark the milestone for both
players and parents. The main point here is that a skill checklist provides a
great resource when helping to direct student energy between games.
To make substantial improvement, students need to work on their chess skills
outside of club meetings. Ideally, players should regularly turn in score sheets
of outside games. Some students will have difficulty finding a suitable human or
computer opponent and will do better with exercise sheets. Having students
complete
analysis forms about games played during meetings can be an excellent
homework exercise.
Most of the chess exercises and supplemental material discussed in this
article can be downloaded from the author's web site:
http://www.professorchess.com.
Copyright © 2003 by Prof. Chester Nuhmentz
All rights reserved
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