Rachel Tigol

Activity Title:​ Fortunately Unfortunately

Sources

● ​ etrieved from
Matador Network. (2011). ​7 Boardless, Cardless Games to Play Anywhere. R

https://matadornetwork.com/life/7-boardless-cardless-games-to-play-anywhere/

● ​ etrieved from
Shepherd Center. (2019). ​Levels of Injury. R

http://www.spinalinjury101.org/details/levels-of-injury

● ​ etrieved from
Allegheny College. (2019). ​Students with Speech Impairments. R

https://sites.allegheny.edu/disabilityservices/students-with-speech-impairments/

Equipment needed

● Chairs, open space

Activity description

1. Have everyone bring a chair and organize themselves in a circle.

2. One person starts the storytelling off with any first line they wish for. Everytime someone speaks,

they stand up from their chair.

a. e.g. “Once upon a time, a princess lived in a castle.”

3. The person to the right is the next individual to go. This person has to add a negative-like twist

onto the person’s previous story.

a. e.g. “The princess was restricted to wearing a bright highlighter green color for the rest of

her life.”

4. The following person after that is required to turn the story around to a positive note.

a. e.g. “It just so happened that the prince who saved her loved the color bright highlighter

green.”
 5. This flip of positive and negative storytelling continues on so that everyone in the circle goes

twice. It becomes more fun when the storytelling gets weird or funny! It also works best when the

story just becomes so unlucky people cannot do anything but relate.

a. Keep groups to 4 - 5 people. Go around the circle twice!

Primary Interaction Pattern

● Intragroup -- this activity is played amongst small groups of 4 - 5 people, all attempting to work

together in order to create this unlucky-to lucky- back to unlucky story. There are no winners or

no competitive aspect. The game is for fun and overall contains positive interaction between

players (e.g. laughter, possibly helping someone with their turn if they are stuck).

Adaptations

● Fortunately Unfortunately is fun game to play with people of all ages. Since the game already

requires players to be seated for the majority of the time, the best way to adapt it would be to take

the standing factor out for individuals with C1-C8 spinal cord injury. Instead of standing while

speaking, players could pass around an object to show who’s turn it is to speak (e.g. a ball) and

the object can just be passed from person to person. While the injury varies from person to

person, individuals may experience more severe symptoms than others; from needing assistance

to breathe on their own to being able to complete most activities of daily living independently. A

verbal game like this one helps clients keep their cognitive functioning very active, as it gives

people the opportunity to be more imaginative than they may on the average day. Spinal cord

injury affects multiple physical aspects of one’s body but their brain remains unaffected. Not only

can this game be done almost anywhere, in any setting, it allows clients to have fun and work on

limited upper body movement when passing an object.

● In some cases of spinal cord injury, the individual may have impaired speaking ability. In this

scenario, players could use portable electronic aids that produce an audio output in order to help
tell their story. Some electronic aids consist of a special type of keyboard in order to help speak

and/or write.