battle of the books - ala.org · what is battle of the books? it’s been used in america for more...
Post on 07-Oct-2020
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Battle of the Books:
Creative Literacy Ideas
for First and Second Language Learners
Michelle Wardrip
Head Librarian
English Modern School
Doha Campus
Improving Literacy Skills How do we do this?
Getting students to come to the library outside of class time
Ordering books that interest students
Expanding the horizon of students and staff
Increase student/staff expectations for the library
Empower students to be Life-long Learners and Readers
What is Battle of the Books? It’s been used in America for more than
30 years
Students make a team of four
Read as many titles as they can
Participate in a tournament against other teams
Team with the most points wins
Things to Consider
What year levels would participate for each division?
Reading levels to choose for each division?
How many books for each division?
Choosing the right books
Timeline for BOB
What format for the questions
Tournament set-up
Using Guest Readers for each division
Reward for the winning teams of both divisions
Which Year Levels to Participate?
Reading levels will be determined by
which year levels are to participate
Two divisions are created:
Primary and Secondary
Primary Level is YR 4-6
Secondary Level is YR 7-10
Reading Levels
Need to choose levels that are in the
middle range for the readers
Reading levels that are too high and too
low will eliminate students
Primary Division would be Fountas and
Pinnell (F & P)levels L to Q
Secondary Division would be F & P levels
Q to W
How Many Titles to Choose?
Based on previous experience, 10 titles
were chosen for each division
Too many titles will overwhelm students
Each team member would need to read
three titles
The more titles each member reads the
better the team will do in the tournament
How To Chose Titles?
Want a variety of genres
Books with strange character names and places make it hard for ELL students to participate
Need strong boy and girl protagonists
Reading levels would impact the different genres
Titles with too many pages would discourage students
Decided on Realistic Fiction, Mystery, Non-fiction, Biography and Fantasy
Making A Timeline
October:
Talking about the BOB Program to students
Making bookmarks to distribute
November:
Handing out and collecting the permission slips
Setting a starting date for the students to begin
reading
February:
the tournament starts
What Format To Use? “Content”, “In Which Book” (IWB) or a
combination of both
Content:
Name of the main character(s), age, where the story took place, specific incidents related to the main character(s)
IWB:
title and author’s name must be given
Decision made to go with Content questions
Writing Questions is an Art
Poorly phrased questions are difficult for
ELL students to understand
After questions are written, edited them
Read them again to make sure they
make sense
Check that questions have the correct
answer and page number listed
Writing Questions is an Art
(con’t)
Need at least 24 questions from each
book
Six to be used for the first three rounds
Six for the last two rounds
Six for the school finals
Six in case of a run-off due to a tie
Print questions from each book on a
different color of paper
Setting Up The Tournament
Each team would battle three times before being eliminated
Most teams battle during their library time
Scheduling battles was difficult if teams members were from different classrooms
First year it took six weeks for all battles to finish
Changed the format the second year and did it in one week
Involving Guest Readers
First year I did it all
Took too much time and if I was sick, we had to
cancel the battles for that day
Involving Guest Readers gives staff more
ownership for BOB
Students appreciate seeing
administrators being a part of the program
It’s a win-win situation for all
Rewards For The Winning Teams
Deciding how many places to give awards
Only first and second place for both divisions
Gift Certificates: 200 QR for first place and 100 QR for second place
Amount was decided by the cost of books in Qatar
The second year, a trophy was was given to the winning school in each division
Conclusions
Battle of the Books as a literacy device for my students worked well. I based this on the following criteria: Amount of students who opted to be a part of the contest
Comments from students that participated
Number of students who wanted to participate but waited too long to sign up
Number of students participating went up the second year for both divisions
Some teams kept the same members from the first year
More YR 5 and YR 6 students participated in BOB the second year
Student comments to teachers that they were having fun with the with the contest
Website Information For examples of the brochure, bookmarks, and
Parent Permission Letter for Battle of the Books, please see this link to our school website:
http://emsdoha.net/
From there, click on the tab that says Programs and then Library. Scroll down just a little and you will see the following links:
BOB Division 1 Information (permission forms in English and Arabic, brochure, bookmark)
BOB Division 2 Information (permission forms in English and Arabic, brochure, bookmark)
Special Thank You! To Kaye Vinson and Libby Hamler-Dupras for their
help in editing and making suggestions to this
Professional Paper.
Without their help, I would not have been able to
do it.
As Teacher-Librarians at my former school district, I
appreciate their time and effort in helping me
accomplish my goals for my school in Doha.
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