The following exercise is inspired by the game Taboo.
Pair everyone off, giving one member of the pair a card that tells them something they must describe so that the other person will guess what it is. Include a list of taboo words that prevent them from going up the lattice, forcing them to be more specific in their descriptions.
e.g. New York Yankees
Taboo words: “Yankees,” “New York,” “NYC,” “Baseball,” “Sport,” “National Pastime”
The description giver has to be more specific, saying something like “a collection of athletes, including Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, which strives to beat the opponent by hitting a ball with a bat to score more runs.”
Repeat this as many times as possible, switching roles regularly. A competitive element can be added to the game by offering a prize to the pair that performs best in the exercise. Measuring by the time between the start of the description and a correct guess, with lowest cumulative total over all the rounds winning, encourages an efficient description. Allowing only one guess per clue and measuring by number of guesses encourages thoroughness, though perhaps at the cost of efficiency.
Potential problem with this: The game will devolve into associations rather than real specificity. For example, for the phrase “New York Yankees” I might say just “Derek Jeter” and most people would be able to guess correctly, but I haven’t really practiced the skill of being specific. You’d have to specifically penalize answers like that to prevent the game from devolving into Hasbro’s Taboo.
The following exercise is inspired by the game Taboo.
Pair everyone off, giving one member of the pair a card that tells them something they must describe so that the other person will guess what it is. Include a list of taboo words that prevent them from going up the lattice, forcing them to be more specific in their descriptions.
e.g. New York Yankees Taboo words: “Yankees,” “New York,” “NYC,” “Baseball,” “Sport,” “National Pastime”
The description giver has to be more specific, saying something like “a collection of athletes, including Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, which strives to beat the opponent by hitting a ball with a bat to score more runs.”
Repeat this as many times as possible, switching roles regularly. A competitive element can be added to the game by offering a prize to the pair that performs best in the exercise. Measuring by the time between the start of the description and a correct guess, with lowest cumulative total over all the rounds winning, encourages an efficient description. Allowing only one guess per clue and measuring by number of guesses encourages thoroughness, though perhaps at the cost of efficiency.
Potential problem with this: The game will devolve into associations rather than real specificity. For example, for the phrase “New York Yankees” I might say just “Derek Jeter” and most people would be able to guess correctly, but I haven’t really practiced the skill of being specific. You’d have to specifically penalize answers like that to prevent the game from devolving into Hasbro’s Taboo.