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.