The Taboo Lecture!?!?!?!
- Dustin Rimmey
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Some of ya'll may remember the game, but not the amazing commercial. As someone who's obsessed with communication and language, one of my classroom staples has always been the physical game Taboo!
The premise is simple. Get your teammates to guess a word or concept, but you cannot say any of the words on the card you've drawn. It's always a fun watch because you have to instantly watch someone rethink how to explain a word or phrase without using the most commonly associated words alongside it.
Have you ever thought about how you could use the game in your classroom, aside from some Friday afternoon giggles?
"I Can't Say What..." aka The Taboo Lecture
The easiest way to sound like you know what you’re talking about is to use big jargon words. If I’m a biologist and I say mitochondria, I can coast on that word without ever explaining what it actually does. But what if I take that word away? We often mistake knowing the word for knowing the thing.
Here's my (totally non-IP infringing) version of the game:
In the Taboo Lecture, we’re banning the obvious terms. You have to explain the heart without saying 'pump,' 'blood,' or 'muscle.' This forces the brain to stop taking the path of least resistance and actually explain the mechanism of the universe.
Jargon may be important in a conversation with peers within a discipline. However, for the outsider, it is a shortcut that can lead to intellectual laziness. This strategy showcases that true mastery is the ability to explain the world to someone who doesn't speak your professional language.
Today, in addition to the template, I'll share with you two different ways you can use this taboo-style game in your classrooms TODAY!
Traditional Taboo
This is simple. Take one of your set of vocabulary terms for a unit, and list 5 taboo words/phrases associated with that description, and list them next to the red X's on the cards.
Then, with a partner, students can either play the game in a traditional setting, or, you can display a taboo card for the whole class to see and make it an exit ticket. Have the students write a summary etc. explaining the concept without using any of the taboo words!
You can see the lean mass in their skulls slowly sweat out as they have to THINK! As they construct the best NEW way to show their true understanding of a concept, without using the clutch of jargon! Below are 4 examples in ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies showcasing how a student would write or verbally explain their term!
The Reluctant Explainer:
Card: GRAVITY
"Okay so...there's this invisible thing that the giant rock we live on does to literally everything. If you let go of something — anything — it goes toward the ground. Not because someone pushed it. Not because it wants to. Just because the big rock is there and apparently that means things have to go toward it. The bigger the rock, the more it does this. Which is why if you stood on something smaller — like the moon — you'd bounce around like an idiot. It's not magic. It's just...rocks being bossy."
The Poet:
Card: PRIME NUMBERS
"They are the lonely ones. They cannot be broken into smaller, equal pieces — they resist simplification the way certain people resist being put in a box. Every other whole thing can be expressed as a combination of these loners. They are the atoms of arithmetic — indivisible, fundamental, and quietly responsible for everything else that exists in the numerical universe. There are infinitely many of them, and yet they become rarer the further you go. Like genius. Like integrity. Like anything truly irreducible."
The Sportscaster:
Card: THE COLD WAR
"Alright folks, we have got a FASCINATING matchup here tonight — two absolute heavyweights on the global stage, and here's the twist — NOBODY IS THROWING A PUNCH. That's right, it's a standoff of historic proportions. Both sides have enough destructive capability to end the game permanently, which means neither one wants to actually use it. So instead? Proxy battles. Spy games. A SPACE RACE. Each side is basically flexing in the mirror and hoping the other one blinks first. The crowd is terrified. The stakes could not be higher. And somehow, inexplicably — nobody actually plays the final round. We'll be right back after these messages."
The Overcorrector:
Card: IRONY
"It's when — okay I can't say the obvious word — it's when what actually occurs is the precise inverse of what all available contextual indicators suggested would occur. Like if someone who dedicates their entire professional existence to preventing household fires then goes home and accidentally incinerates their own kitchen. The universe essentially sends a memo that says 'did you see what I did there?' and everyone is simultaneously amused and horrified. It's not coincidence. It's the cosmos being aggressively self-aware."
Just a quick shoutout to Claude for helping write the answers, and create a student persona after I shared the taboo limitations with him....it....them???? You know what I mean!
Student Creations!
After you've done this a couple of times with your students, so they know both how the game works and your expectations for a successful vs. unsuccessful attempt at summarizing or explaining a concept, change it up!
Take your dusty old vocabulary list, write the terms at the top of a blank taboo card, and have the students create the terms next to the red x's. Here are my thoughts on why this is a great practice!
It's the Ultimate Mastery Check
When a student has to decide which five words are the most "obvious" ways to explain a concept, they have to understand the concept deeply enough to know what its crutch words actually are. You can't identify the shortcuts without knowing the destination. Generating the taboo list is actually a higher-order thinking task than playing the game — it requires them to think meta-cognitively about the concept rather than just explain it.
It Reveals What Students Think is Common Knowledge
The words a student chooses to ban are a window into how they understand the concept. If a student studying photosynthesis bans "chlorophyll" but not "sunlight," that tells you something important about where their understanding is anchored. It's an informal assessment disguised as a game design task.
It Creates Student Ownership
When students generate the cards, the activity stops being something the teacher does to them and becomes something they do for each other. The card becomes theirs. They want to see if their classmates can beat their restrictions — which means they're now personally invested in the rigor of the constraint they created.
It Escalates the Difficulty Naturally
Student-generated taboo lists tend to be harder than teacher-generated ones because students know exactly which words their peers will reach for first. They've been in the same classroom, done the same readings, and absorbed the same vocabulary. They know the shortcuts because they use them too.
It's Replayable
Once students are generating their own cards, the activity has essentially infinite replay value. Every unit, every class period could produce a new set of cards that reflect that specific group's understanding of that specific concept at that specific moment in time. The deck grows with the class.
Want to Give it a Try!
If you're intrigued, you can click on any of the images above to get a link to a remixable Adobe Express template! Want a PDF file to play with? I've got you covered!
Comments