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Cross the Room/Stand Up if… is an out-of-your-seat strategy in which participants either stand up at their seat or cross the room in order to express their opinion about a given statement. This strategy allows participants to focus on: YES, I agree. It is particularly useful for concrete thinkers who might struggle to place themselves on a spectrum of opinion.
Before the activity, create a series of statements on a topic that will evoke an opinion from participants. For example: Cross the room if you think you would like to visit Narnia. For Cross the Room, ask participants to create two lines facing each other. There should be some distance between the two lines and roughly an equal number of participants on each side. The facilitator will read a statement out loud. If the statement is true for the individual participant they will cross the room and join the other line. If the statement is not true for the individual participant, they will remain standing in the line. The activity is repeated with each new prompt. When desired stop and unpack or process the participants responses to the statements. Someone who said YES, please share why. Then, Someone who said NO, please share why. For Stand up if, participants stand up if their response is “yes.” After each statement the full group (standing or sitting) re-sets to sitting in their seats. When desired, after any statement, lead a dialogue with the group to reflect on individual or the full group response.
- What did you notice about the groups’ responses to the questions? When did we move the most? When did we move the least?
- What did we learn about the group from this activity?
- How might these statements make us think differently or understand more about our larger inquiry?
- Don’t worry what anyone else thinks; this is about your opinion/experience.
- MOVE if the statement is true for you.
- If the statement is not true for you, you do not move.
- Discuss with participants the quality of movement they use to show the level of agreement as they cross the room. Very active movement or dance can signal strong agreement; slow, careful movements can signal a lower level of agreement.
- Invite or assign participants to play someone or something else.
- MATH: Participants can play as shapes–Cross the room if you have four sides.
- READING /WRITING: participants can play as vocabulary–Cross the room if you are in the first person/an adjective/if you describe something.
- See related sociometric variations.
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