Our weeklong celebration of reading ending with Read Across America
on March 1 was great. I will give you some info. on my experience and I'm
also sending along the information I got from others.
Since this years battle was to drum up interest for next year, I
chose titles that many kids had read. I had a different set of questions for
5/6 and 7/8. That worked well. There was a battle in each grade level
reading class then a battle within each grade and finally the Grand Battle
on 3/1 was between grades. (7th grade won - a team of all boys!) I let kids
choose their own teams of 3-5 students. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and are
asking to do it again next year. Now that I have the teachers
interested and students excited I will use the format that seems to be the
norm. That is choosing a list of books of wide interest, genre and
difficulty, advertise that list and choose questions from those books. I
thought I'd make that my summer reading list. I'm also considering having a
different list for 5/6 and 7/8 and getting a champion from each. Then kids
can read the other list if they want to. It might motivate some kids to read
twice as many books! I will definitely use the suggestion to match books
with audiotapes so everyone can participate.
The biggest difficulty I ran into was determining who rang their
bell first so we may go to the format of asking each team the same number of
questions so we take out the speed factor (although the kids love that
part!)
We also had other activities going - During lunch we made Dr. Seuss
hats one day; bookmark making was such a hit we did it several days and I
think I'll make the materials available all the time and kids can do it as
wanted. I provided construction paper, glue stick, markers, gel pens,colored
pencils, bookmark templates, book mark ideas and the biggest hit was old
calendars to cut things out of, esp. Mary Engebreit and Children's Book
Council calendars have great things. Friday was dress as your favorite Dr.
Seuss character Day. I was the Cat in the Hat which even my big (taller than
me) 8th grade boys loved. Our first prize went to a girl whose mother had
braided her hair into a sculpture like design. I had the cafeteria make Dr.
Seuss treats which were oddly colored cupcakes. Kids got their name in a
drawing for each Reading Counts test they passed or for each Book
Recommendation they filled out. I displayed the recommendations all over the
library with the book and the check out rate for those books has been
amazing. We had a Reading Marathon all day Friday with guest readers -
Superintendent, parents, local university athletes. I brought in a rocking
chair and lamp and put good reads next to it. The kids love the rocking
chair so I'll have to get one for all the time.
We all had fun. Reading was celebrated and then we started this week
off with a site visit from the Blue Ribbon school committee to determine if
we are up to their standards.
I received some useful suggestions for doing Battle of the Books and one
especially helpful librarian in Oregon sent me thousands of great questions
on great books. She said she would send those questions if you email her at
the address listed in the next paragraph. Thanks to everyone for your help.
Here they are. There are 3 attachments.
I run BOB differently than most people. I do it whole class vs whole class,
with each student only able to answer up to 3 titles each. That way even my
ESL, Chapter, etc students can participate. They are to know the author's
name.I have written the questions. As you can see, There is a variety
of level of books. I do try to be inclusive in the reading levels. But
what I do for the ESL and the Chapter kids are get 3 of the medium level
books on tape for them to read-along with the tape. This way they can
"hear/read" the same book as the rest of the classes.
(Contact her for the attachments of questions -they are very good and there
are lots! irismedia [irismedia@prodigy.net]
There are many Battle books out including one of mine: Battle of Books and
More by Alleyside Press. We have 250 titles with 5 questions each for
middle school readers. If you can get hold of one I'm sure you'll find some
of your titles there. ALA printed a Books, Battles and Bees which might be
in the public libraries. The author is an Oregon woman, my co-author on the
other book, Sybilla Cook. We've always used a set list of books to battle,
your approach is interesting, please let me know how it comes out.
Hi! I found a great book at AASL: "Battle of the Books and More" by
Sybilla Cook, Frances Corcoran & Beverly Fonnesbeck [ISBN 1-57950-047-1]. I
ordered it from Upstart/Highsmith. It has 90 pages of questions about
popular middle school level books.
Here are the practice questions we were sent for our regional competition
this year [some need editing].
Peace,
I have done battle of the books with grades 5-8 and have a database of
questions I use. I use 12 books and the questions are very specific, about
details in the books. I don't use questions that say... In which book does
such and such happen?
Val Metropoulos
Librarian/Teacher
Corvallis Middle School
Corvallis, MT
valm@corvallis.k12.mt.us
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