If you live in or near a college town, the odds are favorable that March Madness is a thing in your world.
And for those of you who have no idea what I am referring to, it’s that time of year when the top 68 teams in college basketball begin battling it out in order to win “The Big Dance” aka the National Championship and everyone you know has filled out their bracket in the hopes of correctly guessing the winners of each game. (That’s called bracketology.)
When I lived in Lawrence, KS (home to former Nationals Champs the Kansas Jayhawks), it was more than a thing. It was a BFD. All of my students were into it. I mean, my sixth graders had well-researched brackets and all lunch conversation revolved around "our" team.
Flash forward to my life in Seattle, where college basketball is decidedly not a thing and when I mentioned the word “bracketology” only one kid raised their hand.
So, it was a little awkward when I then introduced our next unit, Book Bracketology.
But I powered through and this ended up being my students’ absolutely favorite projects!
Here’s the idea:
1- Students select an independent reading book. It can be literally any book they want. (They especially LOVE this!)
2- Before they begin reading, tell students that when they finish reading, they will create a 2-minute (or less!) speech about why their book is exceptional. They will then have to present their speech to the class in a head-to-head challenge against another student’s book. It is important to tell them this up front so they know to look for any compelling evidence about why their book is superior.
3- As students are reading, you do your usual reading mini-lessons, check-ins, and small group discussions.
4- When everyone has finished reading, do a few lessons on effective public speaking. (Sometimes, I gameify this topic using this resource.)
5- To make the brackets visible, I print out color copies of the students’ book covers and show the match-ups in the hallway. This gets the whole school invested in which book will win!
6- On the day of the tournament, students present their speeches to the class. The audience uses a Google Form to assess each book and at the end of each round, I tally up the votes and advance the book that got the most votes. They CANNOT just vote for their friends because they MUST include legitimate reasons for their vote. (Be sure to check out the Google Form linked above to see how I structure the voting.) When I advance the book, on sticky notes, I add a few reasons why that book was chosen by the students.
7- Play continues until there are just 2 books left. The winner of the final round is the champion, and I usually buy them a book of their choice as a prize.
One thing I learned the hard way-decide if students will be able to re-use their speeches if they advance. Most of my students decided to write all new speeches for each round, some even incorporated weaknesses of their rival book.
This project was such a huge success that my students that they asked to do it again before the end of the year, which we totally did!
Another added bonus, every student added multiple books to their TBR lists, which is such a beautiful thing heading into summer.
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