1. A Guide to Team Choice elements

2. Scoring
Team Choice Elements are 15% of the total score.

3. What are Team Choice Elements?
Creations that show off a team’s interests, skills, areas of strength and talents.
The team may create anything they wish for team choice elements including props, music, dances, technical gadgets, costumes, physical actions, etc.

4. Common Team Choice Elements
Costumes
Songs
Dances
Backdrops
Set Pieces
Puppets
Instruments
Rhyming Scripts
Unique gadgets

5. An Important Thing to Remember
A Team Choice element should be something that is NOT required by your challenge. For example, if your challenge requires you to create a painting, you may not submit that painting as a Team Choice Element.

6. Team Choice elements are scored on three items of criteria
1. Creativity & Originality
2. Quality, Workmanship, or Effort
3. Integration into the Presentation

7. Creativity & Originality
How creative or original is the Team Choice Element? Is it something they have seen a lot before? Or is it something new? Why is it new? How well does it impress them? Was there a lot of planning and design, or does this feel common?

8. Quality, workmanship, or effort
Is this something the team worked hard on? How much time did the team take to produce a quality product? Is there attention to detail? Is there intricacy, tediousness, or skill involved in producing a quality end product for a score?

9. Integration into the presentation
Does the Team Choice Element have meaning in the Presentation? Is it present for a significant reason, or is it just simply put there because it had to be there? How does it affect the characters or the plot line in a meaningful way that the can be seen or felt?

10. Picking team choice elements
Ask each team member what do they consider their biggest strength that helps the team. (acting, building things, painting things, sewing things, singing, etc.)

11. Picking team choice elements
What hidden talents does each team member have that the team may not know about?

12. Picking team choice elements
Are there any items (props, songs, dances, backdrops, costumes, special gadgets, etc.) that the team wants to create to increase the quality of their solution?

13. Picking Team Choice Elements
Would any of the items listed in the previous slide make for good Team Choice Elements? Why? Do they fit the three criteria that the Team Choice Elements are appraised on?
Is the team CERTAIN that these elements are NOT required by the challenge?

14. Icing on the cake
The team choice elements are like the icing on the cake. They are the delicious extra that sets off the main course! Team choice elements give team members the chance to “show off” their special abilities and talents for the appraisers. This is the part of the competition that lets the team choose two things they would like to be scored on.

15. Team choice elements inventory
A great way to have your team discover their strengths and what they each bring to the team is to do the Team Choice Inventory.
Hand out inventory.

16. Other considerations
Each Team Choice Element must be capable of being evaluated as a stand alone item.
Appraisers must be able to quickly and easily identify your team’s Team Choice Elements.
The way in which the Team Choice Elements are written on the Tournament Data Form is very important. Clearly identify the Team Choice Element and describe why it is important and adds to the solution of the challenge.

17. Tournament Data form description Example
Team choice Element 1: What is your Team Choice Element?
Continually rhyming everything that is said throughout the performance.
Please write a brief description of your Team Choice Element.
Every character rhymes throughout the entire play, but each has a different style of rhyming. The Doctor rhymes and speaks like Dr. Seuss. George uses rap to rhyme. Hunter 1 and 2 rhyme in sync. Sylvia joins with the same sound ending each complete verse.

18. Some interesting links
at-global-finals/ Descriptions of winning solutions
Main site for DI
Wyoming State DI Site

19. Questions?