I’ve hosted a March Madness poetry tournament for six years in my classroom now. It is something I look forward to every year and former students look back on with fondness when they stop in my classroom and see the bracket covering our bulletin board. Here's 4 reasons I keep doing it.
1. It builds a community among my students.
Hosting the poetry tournament (other people do chapter books or MG or YA popular novels) builds classroom community as students vote for their favorite poems. Reading and rereading poems together provides a common ground for students. They can commiserate with each other when their “winner” loses and cheer together when their “winner” advances.
2. It adds diverse authors and experiences to my curriculum.
Another benefit of hosting a poetry tournament is the opportunity to bring a variety of authors into my classroom. I carefully select the novels and shorter texts we read throughout the year as part of our curriculum, but the poetry tournament can add 8, 16, 32 or even 64 other opportunities to spotlight other cultures and experiences.
3. It increases students’ comfort level with poetry.
Students sometimes groan at the prospect of reading poetry, but after a month of reading and rereading poems, they are much more comfortable with the different structures and forms that poems are written in. Repeated readings help students pick up on the rhythm and meter present in some poems.
4. It incorporates an easy way to review previously taught terms and skills.
A poetry tournament is also an easy way to incorporate review of skills and terms taught earlier in the year. Since poems are such short texts, I can dedicate just 5-10 minutes a class period reviewing theme, tone, and figurative and descriptive language as well as build up students’ stamina for reading challenging texts as standardized testing approaches.
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