March Madness Book Tournament and another Freebie for you! | Mentoring in the Middle

March Madness Book Tournament and another Freebie for you!

March Madness Book Tournament
Last week I blogged about creating a March Madness Book Tournament for your students and that it's a great way to get them reading, talking, and writing about their favorite book of the year.  Start with that post here.

This week, I'll fill you in on what to do as you narrow the field down from 16 books to the winner.

WEEK 3 

For this week of the March Madness Reading Challenge, you have students work together to create a poster to highlight their book.  Students whose books advance to this round get to be the team leaders and other students join them.  I emphasize that students shouldn't choose groups based on their friends, but rather on books they most are interested in, or have read and loved.  They seem to make that work.  Everyone must be in a group.  Usually, there are a couple of students who wander a bit at first, but together we find a group that seems a good fit.

WEEK 4

When 4 books are remaining, students prepare to have the main character from the book "interviewed." One student is designated to play that role.  The groups are given 20 questions, some with more immediate answers and some that require making inferences.  Students choose 5 from each category and prepare their answers.  Then, they can create costumes or add anything else that they think will make an impression.  It's fun to watch them prepare for the interviews and help the person who'll be the main character.


WEEK 5

For the final two books of the reading bracket, students create a video book trailer.  They can use whatever movie app feels comfortable for them; most choose iMovie or their iPad video because they're more comfortable with that.  We find some time to show the two videos to all the students on our team.  

Every week, voting is done through Google Forms, which makes it easy to tabulate the result.  I just create a check-off box with directions for how many books students should vote for that week.

Should there be March Madness Bracket prizes?  I sometimes give prizes, but I also give these certificates.  If you'd like a free copy of these, you can download them here.

  • Don't have the time to create this?  No worries!  Download March Madness Book Tournament from TpT and it comes with everything you need - basketballs for signs, graphic organizers, and teacher directions.




No comments

Post a Comment