Coffee For The Brain March Madness Book Tournament Opens

I had an epiphany the other day while running. I have been fortunate enough to be selected to be a Cybil judge for the reading challenge and as I continue to grow as a blogger and educator I kept thinking to myself that I need to do something to create excitement about reading in my building. We have established a great culture of reading here at BMS and I wanted to add more. Being a sports enthusiasts and realizing that boys are still a challenge to motivate to read I came up with a bracket like the NCAA tournament in March, but instead of college basketball teams we would have books. Let me explain my vision in greater detail.

I will be asking for reading judges. These judges will work in pairs. These pairs will be assigned two novels (like a basketball game). They will have two weeks to read both books. They will be asked to write a review of each book (stats of a basketball game or newspaper write-up) that will be posted on my blog for others to read. After completing both books, the pair will decided on which book they liked better (winner of the game). They will write up a rationale why they chose the book they did and that novel will move on to the next round. This process will continue until there is a declared winner. Each round will last two weeks.

I also envision having two brackets. Each bracket will be the same, but one bracket will be students reading the books and the other bracket will consist of adults i.e. teachers, staff members, etc. I think it will be interesting to see how our likes and differences match up on the tournament bracket. This will also cause some great discussion in the classrooms and hallways.

As a reward for reading and taking part, I will allow the judges to keep the books they have read. It is the least I can do for taking time to read. If the people do not wish to keep the books, then simply return them to me and I will have a contest to give them away to others who do wish to have them.

Here is quick list of dates and this is all subject to change as we approach the time.

October - I will be prepping all materials, working out rules, details, applications, seeking insight, etc.

Start Date Announcement  – November 19th - Starting at midnight I will open up the nomination form (like the Cybils). I will have a Google Document on my blog for people to submit book nominations. Only one nomination per person.

Start Date Announcement – November 19th – I will be accepting applications to be a judge for this contest. The application will also be posted on my blog.

Early December – I will host a meeting with all judges to go over rules, details, and field any questions. We will also determine at this point in time how we want to handle the final rounds of judging.

December – The entire month I will be purchasing all the books to have ready to go when we return from Winter Break.

January 3rd – 14th – This is the first round. Not quite two weeks, but this is the time we have to work with. This will be crazy insane keeping track of all the books, reviews, and judging decisions. (64 books)

January 17th – 28th – The second round of judging begins (32 books)

January 31st – February 11th – The third round of judging (16 books)

February 14th – February 25th – The fourth round of judging (8 books)

February 28th – March 11 – The fifth round of judging (4 books)

March 14 – March 25th – The sixth round of judging (2 books)

March 28th – April 8th – Final book will be voted on as yet to be determined until judges meeting

April 11th – Announce the winner