Mad Lib Warm-Ups

Mad Lib Warm-Ups

by Helen Sadler

I teach a creative writing course which has all three levels in middle school together in one class.  This past semester a 6th grade boy started a mad lib activity at the beginning of class that became a regular feature.

We always begin each writing class with a ten minute freewrite: lights off and a few prompts up on the screen. After a couple weeks of the usual freewriting, a boy began to create a story leaving out specific parts.  He would then sit on the author's stool in the front of the room and ask the other writers to provide the details, calling on them as they raised their hands. What is cool about this is that he had to tell them if he needed a noun, adjective, or verb: it reinforced these parts of speech without any work on my part! He also would have to identify if the noun had to be a person, place, or thing. At first this started out slowly, with only a few participating, but eventually everyone got more involved and wanted to offer ideas.

Mad Lib Shell by Isabela

After the story was all filled in, a reading of it would take place, to smiles and giggles.  We might talk about correct usage of things like verbs, but in general this was just considered a warm-up and a way to build community by collaborating on the end product.

Mad Lib filled in by student suggestions

Eventually other students began to write their own mad lib shells, and taking turns calling on others to fill in their stories. After several weeks of this, a 7th grade girl used song lyrics, leaving out specific words in order to "rewrite" the song and change its meaning.  This caught on and was used by writers as more and more got involved.

Leaving room for student innovation is the key to building a writing community.  This second period class taught me a lot about being open to whatever works best for the group as a whole, and allowing them to bend and shape it as they saw fit.

Song lyrics used for Mad Lib, Twenty-One Pilots being a favorite