Teaching "Death by Scrabble" with Scrabble

Charlie Fish’s “Death by Scrabble” is one of the basic texts a teacher can use in a Reading Literature/Humanities class. One way of discussing the short story is to anchor it on Feminist Criticism, focusing on the following interrelated topics, among others:

• Characterization. How is the wife/husband portrayed in the story? What personality traits can be inferred from their “thought bubbles,” dialogue, gestures, movements, and Scrabble word choices? How can their relationship be described?

•  Figures of Speech. What symbol(s), metaphor(s) and other literary devices are used in the story? Why is Scrabble used in the story instead of other board games?

• Plot. How does the author manipulate words to propel tension and conflict, action and reaction? What is the turning point in the story?  Compare the story’s beginning and ending in terms of the roles played by the characters and the power they either wielded or yielded.

To help students visualize how skillfully the author used the game itself and carefully chose tiles to show power relations and conflict, action and reaction, I designed a PowerPoint presentation(see below) for my class years ago intending to show the possible placement of tiles made by the characters as they played the game.

In this way, “Death by Scrabble” is made alive by Scrabble.