I personally don’t “get” why Mad Libs are so popular among some kids — just one of many such attractions I don’t “get” 🙂
They’re also of limited value in the language-learning classroom,
But there is a new site called…Madlibs that lets you easily create your own. It could be a fun little filler if you have a few minutes leftover in the computer lab some day. You can then post the links on a teacher/student blog or website for others to complete. I could see creating them, and completing ones your peers made, could be a good activity.
A caveat, however, is that it appears the most recent mad libs done on the site are posted on the homepage, and some might be a little off-color.
Thanks for this resource Larry! I’ve been creating Madlibs for my students to practice specific vocabulary words and this is an easy way to make them!!
My own kids (7 & 8) love Mad Libs. I think it’s because they specifically choose goofy words to put in, and then are amused by the goofy words in the more serious context. And as for their usefulness, it has taught them what nouns, verbs, adjective, and adverbs are. So, I’d say they do have some value!
Stefanie,
I do see that they can help students learn what those parts of speech are. In the language learning classroom,however, having students learn them without knowing how to use them in a comprehensible way isn’t very helpful. The native English speaker is a different story.
Larry
Hey Larry,
First off, thanks so much for your review!
You’ve definitely raised a valid concern about off color stories making it to the front page. I’ve been trying to figure out solutions for that. I’ve only had a few ideas so far, let me know what you think!
– Currently, madlibs are taggable, so once I figure out how I want to display the tags on the front page, it would be possible for teacher’s to create and tag madlibs with their name or something, and only display their tagged madlibs.
– I was thinking about prompting users once when they first visit the site, and ask them if they’re older 18 or not. If they aren’t, I could hide madlibs tagged with certain words like “adult”, “dirty”, “nsfw”, etc.
– Maybe allow people to create their own private madlibs that live on their own url like: http://TEACHER-NAME.madlibs.com/ – teachers can add madlibs that they deem appropriate themselves. Or maybe something more generic like http://kids.madlibs.com/
Thanks again,
Sean Huber