Mad Libs: A Super Silly Way to Fill in the _____________!

Raise your hand if your childhood memories include completing a couple of pages out of your newest Mad Libs book?! This popular game debuted in 1958 as interactive short stories, where those reading the short stories were prompted to fill in the blank for words that had been omitted. The missing words or phrases would be assigned a specific category or part of speech, such as noun, verb, place, exclamation, and so on. Upon completion, the story would be read aloud. Usually, the story would end up being quite funny and somewhat nonsensical. Countless hours of entertainment were sure to be had.

Mrs. Pickett at Beck Elementary introduced her fourth-grade GATES students to this familiar favorite. It didn’t take long for them to catch on and they looked forward to completing new ones during their class visits. Of course, Mrs. Pickett knew these Mad Libs would be entertaining, however, she also knew how they could help reinforce very important grammar skills and challenge their thinking. To successfully complete Mad Libs students needed a clear understanding and working knowledge of the different parts of speech, or their finished story would not make sense.

The real challenge came when students were asked to compose their own Mad Libs. They begin with writing short stories about a topic of their choosing. They made sure their story had a clear beginning, middle, and end. When students struggled with coming up with a topic, they were encouraged to write about their favorite candy or something they ate for breakfast that morning. When writing Mad Libs, literally, anything goes!

Once students completed their short story draft, it was time to reread and decide which variables to remove. The variables would be the missing words in their Mad Libs. Because their stories were drafted in Google Docs, students highlighted the variables and identified the part of speech. Careful thought went into selecting which words would be the best variables. Students had to think through scenarios that would result in the most effective, and often humorous, outcome. After all, the fun part of Mad Libs is reading the finished story. 

Using Flippity.net, students were then able to digitally publish their short stories in a Mad Libs template. Through using this templated Google Sheet, students became more versed in working in Sheets. They became familiar with the terminology used in spreadsheets, such as rows, columns, and formatting. Once the template was finalized, students published their Google Sheet to the web for sharing purposes. Since most 2nd - 5th-grade students are consistently spiraling back through grammar skills, it was a goal for completed Mad Libs to be shared with the campus.

Knowing these completed Mad Libs would be shared campus-wide was motivating for students. They were careful to spend quality time revising and editing their work because their audience was authentic and they wanted to share with pride. Revisions were made again and again as careful thought was given to the various possibilities of responses the Mad Libs may receive. They wanted to make sure the variables were descriptive and specific enough to produce an end product that would 

To say these students were engaged in this work would be an understatement. Mrs. Picket said it was incredible to see her students collaborating with one another as they thought critically about the decisions they made to produce their Mad Libs. Students were bonding and building relationships through the process too. The laughter was an added bonus. Countless giggles were shared as students read aloud completed Mad Libs and shared their work with families via Seesaw. This provided them with extra practice with fluency and reading with expression. 

We invite you to explore the Mad Libs created by the 4th grade GATES students at Beck Elementary. Share the Google Slides via Google Classroom or Seesaw. Then we’d love to hear from you. Share out on Twitter tagging @beckelem, @BES_GATES, and @kel_sanders. We can’t wait to share with these students how their work has reached others. 

Shout out to Mrs. Dixon's class for diving into these student-created Mad Libs before the break. 

Say “Oui!” to Performance-based Assessments

If you’re anything like I was as a classroom teacher, you’ve spent many nights drowning in papers to grade. You understand the time spent in coffee shops, trying desperately to get caught up. And yet, if you’re anything like me, there have been times that, after all those hours and lattes, you weren’t satisfied that your students’ grades actually reflected their knowledge and ability. Where was I going wrong?

I assigned and graded vocabulary worksheets each week, but students were still scoring low on their diction in writing. I graded reading quizzes that assessed plot and character knowledge, but in the end some students couldn’t talk about the major themes of a novel. Between what felt like wasted class time and weekends spent grading, it never failed that when it turned out an assignment didn't actually tell me whether or not my students truly “got it”, I was left frustrated.

I understood that traditional assignments and tests work to show if students “know” something, but quickly learned that they fall short as an indicator of whether or not students can actually use that knowledge. Of course there is a time and place for each, but it is important for teachers to challenge their students with performance-based assessments if they want to know that students can apply their knowledge in meaningful ways. Northwest High School’s French teacher, Madame Blanc (Mrs. White), made this shift in her classroom this year, away from traditional tests and towards a performance-based method of assessment -- and it seems to be paying off.

Each six weeks, Madame Blanc gives her students both creative tasks and opportunities to apply and demonstrate their learning through student-created products that are ultimately shared through their ePortfolio, a personal and digital collection of their growth and learning. As a basic example, she asked her students to create an article for a French magazine that explains an American holiday and custom as a way to assess their application of many language skills they are working on.

French student Elise Reuman recounted one assignment where she and her classmates were asked to create a video that described their partner’s family as a way to demonstrate their ability to use adjectives in French. Using Adobe Spark video, she described her classmate's family. Elise reflected, “...using the vocabulary in a way that applied it to a likely scenario really helped to ingrain the information. Projects like this usually only require the [written] portion of the vocabulary… [but] Mrs.White, went a step further and required a vocal response as well. This really solidified some of the pronunciation and helped me become more comfortable with actually speaking the French language.”

As Elise shared, performance-based tasks engage students in more authentic opportunities to practice real-world skills. It’s important to note that, in a performance-based classroom “teachers do not have to “give up” units of study or favorite activities” (ASCD). According to ASCD, it’s because these “authentic tasks are rooted in curriculum” that “teachers can develop [assignments] based on what already works for them.” It’s ultimately through small changes in how teachers ask students to learn that “assignments become more authentic and more meaningful to students.”

For example, in another assignment in Madame Blanc's class, students were challenged to learn about multiple perspectives, including the likes and dislikes of French teenagers. They had to go further to compare/contrast these perspectives with those of American Teens. Students interviewed their peers (some opting to collect data through Google Forms), graphed and visualized the data they collected (through Google Sheets), and then wrote of summary of their findings in both French and English, finally sharing their work through their ePortfolio (a website created on Google Sites). Assignments like this require students to be strong in their content knowledge, but more than that, they develop skills outside of French language studies -- skills like the 6 Cs: creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, character education, and citizenship.

Watching performance-based assessments work for Madame Blanc has reiterated what hindsight and experience taught me: It was when I focused on creating rigorous and authentic learning tasks for my students, rather than assigning simple checks-for-understanding for grades, that I best served them. It is through rigorous, performance-based learning tasks that we can empower our students to think critically and create, and that we can most accurately and authentically assess their learning.

Pixel Art is "Completely Awesome"

Pixel Art has quickly grown in popularity, again. There are apps and websites galore when you do a search in an app store or online. Mrs. Pickett at Beck Elementary knew pixelation would be something fun for her GATES students to explore, while equipping them with valuable knowledge of Google Sheets. She was also excited about the opportunity it would create for curriculum enrichment and the extensions in the classroom were plentiful. Before trying their hand at pixel art, students first began to learn about its history. Of course, the biggest buy in for many of her students was learning that the ever so popular classics, Super Mario Bros and Zelda, utilized pixelation. To quote William, a student in her class, "it is completely awesome!"

As an introductory activity, Mrs. Pickett shared a template with students in Google Classroom. This template was created in Google Sheets and exposed students to conditional formatting. Their excitement was instant as they discovered that the empty template would soon contain a piece of their own creative art. Using these templated Google Sheets, it quickly became something that could serve as extension to the learning happening in math. Thinking about recent learning regarding fractions and decimals, students could be prompted to create a picture that was ⅓ green or .1 white. The possibilities were endless. This kind of higher level thinking merged their mathematical learning with creativity and problem solving. 

Their exploration and creativity continued, as a design challenge was issued. After listening to the book, The Big Orange Splot, students had the opportunity to discuss perspective and how it’s different for everyone. Their challenge was to design a house that was completely unique. Students were asked to consider what it would look like and to have it be a reflection of their own personality and dreams. Step one was to draft their pixel house on graph paper. This allowed students the opportunity to think through their color choices and refine their pixel design skills before moving it to Google Sheets.

Having experienced the formatted Google Sheet template Mrs. Pickett provided at the beginning of their study, students had knowledge of the process. It was then time for them to learn how to format a sheet that would support their house design. Students were encouraged to watch this tutorial video to gain knowledge on the process of conditional formatting. It was important that their template and color pallet matched the design they drafted. Of course, lots of problem solving and creativity took place as students worked on making it just right. Designs with curved lines were a welcomed challenge.

For many, this process became something they enjoyed doing. It was not uncommon to find students fully engaged in the conditional formatting and pixel art process during any free time they had. Rainy days, which meant indoor recess, were welcomed because they could pull out their Chromebook and continue working on their design. Drew said he enjoyed learning about pixel art because, “there was no limit to my imagination."

Mallory found the tasks to be fun and inspiring. She is hopeful they will have more time to explore and create again soon. And she’s not alone. Several students extended their newfound knowledge of conditional formatting and decided to create their own server of games. William, one student who contributed to the game, said the most challenging part was, “the color formatting, because if we got a single thing wrong it would fail."Learning to work collaboratively and problem solve through the tough times made this a task they will never forget.

One of the coolest parts of this process for Mrs. Pickett was the level of engagement and problem solving her students experienced. She saw value in learning about Google Sheets and knows this early exposure will certainly pay off in the real world for her students