Do you want your students to love reading? Are you keen to introduce them to new books they will enjoy? Are you determined to make this school year better? If the answer to all these questions is YES!, then you are ready for March Madness Bracket First Friday Chapter Book Competition. This reading concept means that you use the March Madness frenzy to introduce your students to new novels.
You will read and listen to one chapter from a novel in order to entice them to explore the rest of the book. The whole point is to get the students interested and intrigued by this snippet and, of course, make them want to read more.
How to select the books for March Madness Bracket
Deciding which is the best First Chapter Friday March Madness Bracket competition books for your students can be hard. You can simply take whatever you have in your school or class library. However, the best bet is to experiment with a large variety of genres, authors, brand new releases, series, student recommendations and interesting topics.
Here is the list that I’ve used last year with my class and I plan to use this year as well. We mostly listened to them read on YouTube, but I would also read to my students in order to keep the element of surprise.
How to make reading interesting
You can simply open a book and read the first chapter without following any First Chapter Friday template. The problem with this approach is that it will not give you all the possible benefits of this experience. Therefore, the students will feel bored eventually. You want your students to feel fully engaged and active during the whole process. This is why you should transform the reading session into a competition between books. I really love the whole March Madness Championship style and my students adore this book battle.
My students listen to the first chapter. They complete a First Chapter Friday score chart for each book on 5 criteria with a total score of maximum 50. I add the scores given by all the students and write it under the book.
The book with the highest score moves up the bracket. You can use the initial scores to determine the winners for Elite Eight, Final Four and Champion. On the other hand, you can allow students to vote for them along the way.
This is the March Madness Bracket First Chapter Friday for middle school competition I did last year with my students. It was a blast!
What’s next?
How about you? What are you going to do this year in order to make reading fun for your students? If you want help with everything you need to setup a successful March Madness Bracket First Chapter Friday , click here!
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