Choose a sample of 200–300 words from a magazine or newspaper. Work with a partner to count the number of times each letter is used. Make a list of the letters in the English alphabet. Working with a partner, read your words letter by letter and record the number of times each appears.

Write a short paragraph without using the letters A and N.

Play Hangman with a partner. In this game, you take turns guessing letters in each other’s words and try to avoid having a hangman consisting of a circle and six segments drawn. A part of the hangman is drawn with each mistake.

Do an Internet search using the following words: "codes and ciphers."

In the game of Scrabble™, players use letter tiles to form words and earn points. The table below shows the number of tiles available in Scrabble™ for each letter in the alphabet. The total number of non-blank tiles is 98; 2 blank tiles can be used as any letter.

Is the frequency of each letter in Scrabble™ about the same as its frequency in the sample given in the Complete Solution? What are the biggest differences you notice? How would you construct a “better” set of Scrabble™ tiles? How would you assign point values to each letter that represents letter frequencies?