Sunday, November 15, 2009

US Nobel Peace Prize Anagram Worksheet

Got new software yesterday -- Anagram Genius is the program Dan Brown used to concoct the anagrams in Angels and Demons and now we have it as well. It's first workout was to conduct a learning activity about the Nobel Peace Prize. Barack Obama receives his on December 10, providing a great opening for discussion. Twenty-one US citizens have received the prize since its inception in 1921 and this worksheet challenges the student to unscramble anagrams of their names.

I didn't include the three US organizations who received the prize. Here they are:
Is ill-mannered top banana contaminating?
Poisoner terrifies connivently enchant wrathful paranoia.
I'm an infected, mesmeric eviscerator.

The first sheet of the handout just includes the anagrams. The second sheet has biographies of the 21 recipients, plus an answer key at the bottom. If this is done as a class exercise, you can chop off the answers, if you prefer, and hand them out later. Download the PDF of the Anagrams HERE.

If you are facilitating the Class of Nonviolence,  this exercise would make a nice accompaniment to the session on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 (his Nobel lecture makes good reading!)  It could also be used with the session on Gandhi, who did not receive the prize. The Nobel Prize Organization has a lively article about Gandhi on their Web site. A good class discussion could be: Should Mohandas Gandhi have received the Nobel Peace Prize? Why or why not?

And the answers to the anagrams above are:
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (1997)
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985)
American Friends Service Committee (1947) 

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