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Listed here is the:

Concept — Bracket Information — Variations — Comments — Winners

CONCEPT

The idea is to create a basketball tournament-pairing chart like NCAA does each year in March. Then locate 64 poems and pair them off, just like basketball teams. Then read two poems each day and let kids vote on the “winner.” Do this until you have a final four and then go to the gym and finish in front of the student body. . . . . perhaps a way to enjoy it more or raise a little money for the English Department.

There are several ways to conduct the contest: 
1.  Teacher chooses poems
2.  Student chooses poems
3.  Poems preset by those of us on lists

You have options on the poems. No one has offered a set of poems for all to use in the contest. My goal is to locate poems written by poets found in all four compass directions in the US-East, West, North, and South. I think it would be more educational and offer more opportunities for activities to do it this way.

Other plans of mine include having a Women's poetry tournament and a Men's poetry tournament, just like the NCAA's tournament offerings. I'm not there yet in terms of poems, poets, boundaries, etc., but I will place all that I "dream up and write up" at my web site over the next six months or so. 

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As I see it, there are several ways to conduct this activity: 

1.  The teacher selects 64 poems and reads them in pairs-one pair each day. The students select the one they like best. This poem is then declared a winner and advances along the tournament bracket. Another day and another match-up occurs...and so on until all poems are read once. The second round of play starts then. Again, select two of the first-round winners in the proper order and brackets and read these again. Again, the class votes....so on. When the final four poems are selected after several rounds and weeks of play, a Final Four event is staged in the gym or classroom. The student body votes as before. (The teacher here is either reading the poems or letting students read for the finals.)

2.  The teacher lets the students select their favorite poems and then creates the tournament brackets, making certain 64 poems will be read or you could just start at 32, the second round in the 64 field. Two students read their poems in front of the class. The class votes. It might be better to choose a neutral audience to avoid that "popularity" worm that sneaks into some contests between two students. But that is not necessary if your class gets along well. 

3.  The teacher selects the poems and the students read. Same format as above. There are many variations that one could do with this...like letting the administrators read for the finals. Choosing the poems and who will read are the big decisions. I know that the 64 I choose won't be the ones others choose, but then I teach in a middle school and I like my students to enjoy the "fun" of poetry with some really meaningful pieces thrown in to prepare them for high school. Likewise, a high school teacher will want to include many classics, etc. For best results and participation, it might be wise to let the students choose for the tournament. Maybe in the fall the teacher could do the selections and prepare the students for the March Madness Tournament.

BRACKET INFORMATION

Free blank  (PDF) NCAA basketball bracket at:  
http://images.sportsline.com/images/ncaasports/arc_image/d1_bkc_2004_bracket.pdf

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I'm copying the brackets onto an overhead and having one of my students copy it from the overhead onto poster board. This is my first year doing this, so I thank everyone for their suggestions. Wish me luck; I've never done a whole poetry unit before!

VARIATIONS

I divided the brackets into EAST, WEST, NORTH, and SOUTH, thinking that poems chosen should reflect those regions....again, for the fun and competitive spirit it might bring about. And let's face it, there are enough poems from each region to satisfy all places on the 64-bracket format. Perhaps an extension of this would be to do one for 64 countries......ooooh, my ADHD mind is wandering now-ha!!!

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I’ve decided to break my March Madness Poetry Tournament into two sections, representing the two sides of the tournament. My upper level classes will be given one “side” of the brackets while my lower level class & the classes of two of my EC teacher colleagues will have the other—this will allow me to present poems that are a little “harder” to my upper level kids and poems that are a little “easier” to my lower ability students... and the EC kids can take part too.

We’re planning a big Poetry Party in April to vote on the winner.

I’m pulling together a binder with 64 poems (32 medium-to-hard, 32 easier-to-medium), author biographies, literary elements in the poems, and discussion starters for each poem. I’m thinking this will be a 5-10-minute opening activity in class after our SSR.

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I am doing this with my 8th graders. We do 2 poems a day—I have created a 64 poem system. Because my students are at such different levels, half my kids read poems from one side of the bracket (the easier poems) and half read from the other—so actually in a day we are getting through 4 poems between all my classes.

I have it planned out so that I'll be finished in about mid-April (we had some testing this week and that put us behind). We do have spring break in the middle of this, but I don't think that's going to make a difference.

I am creating themes for each day of poetry—I find that my students are better able to deal with difficult poems when they know they're about a particular theme (or even the *same* theme—sometimes I don't give them a theme, just mention that the poems are related). So far we've had days for death, humor, love, growing up, sports, and a few others. I have been giving poems to two students a day ahead of time and asking those students to prepare to read them the following day.

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Here's what I did:
1.  Brought in a ton of poetry books and let my 16 8th graders look through them.
2.  Elect 4 team captains—they drafted "players" and "equipment" (books).
3.  Each kid received a number and selected four poems.
4.  I painted the NCAA brackets in tempera paint on my blackboard complete with the numerical rankings: 1 vs. 16,  etc.
5.  Each kid wrote the name of their poems on their numbered lines, one in each "region."
6.  We did mini lessons on oral poetry reading and practiced using a tape recorder.
7.  Kids were given a rubric with the criteria "laureate" top, ""pro" and "beginner." Grading is based on selecting two easy-to-medium poems, two medium-to-hard poems, speaking with expression, pronouncing words correctly, making eye contact, and offering a reason for selecting that particular poem.
8.  Matches began in numerical order with a coin toss to determine in what "region" the poems would be played.
9.  Students come to the front of the room, read their poems twice, then step out of the room for the group to vote on the winner—that one moves ahead into the second round, then the "sweet sixteen," "elite eight," and the "final four." Winners will be getting NCAA basketballs from Wal-Mart ($4) and a book of poetry.

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Here's how I do the March Madness Tournament: (Or at least, this is how I did it last year, my first year, thanks to the creative people on this list!)

Like another poster, I bring in a cartload of poetry books, and have the kids take turns reading them, and passing them around. Since I have 21 kids, and I do it only with one class, I'll have them each select three poems, and I'll select one, making 64. Each of us is given a number, and we write the name of the poem on the bracket next to our numbers in each region. We focus on oral reading, and practice. (Last year, I showed a clip from My Fair Lady first)

This year I'll have them write a response in their journals also. Anyway, each day, two poems from each region "play": one student reads, then another reads. They take a moment before they begin or when they finish and talk about why the selected it, what it means to them, etc. The names of both poems are written on the board, and when the students are both finished reading, they go out into the hallway, and the class votes on the poem that they liked best. One thing I did was have a student moderator (an MC) who recorded the votes, and that worked well. We all stressed that we were voting for the poem, not the person.

The winning poem moves on to the next level, and so on. We did about 4 a day, and while that brought us late into April, the kids really loved it. The results, too, were fantastic. The winning poems—the Final Four—included "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night," "The Ballad of Birmingham," a "Paintbrush," a poem from the Chicken Soup books, and the winner—a poem about the Holocaust that had been written by a local high school student! The newspaper had a field day with the contest, and interviewed both kids, as well as the members of my class, none of whom had ever really spent much time reading poetry before.

For those of you thinking of trying it, I'd encourage you to let the kids choose poems that appeal to them, and move them. The junk gets weeded out really fast, and it's absolutely not the most popular kids who win! (One of the winners was the teacher I had teamed with last year!) When the kids were interviewed by the reporter, they all talked about the challenge—and the joy—in choosing their own poetry, the ones that moved them. 

I originally had bought a couple of NCAA basketballs from Wal-mart (3.29 each ) as an incentive, but the kids really didn't care about them. In fact, when our school held its curriculum fair in mid-April, a big group came back and performed with a karaoke machine, etc. An even larger group of former students—and these are tough kids—think "Dangerous Mind"—came to watch! It's was amazing to see, and I can't wait to do it again.

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Last year, I was turned on to this lesson. I ran out of time to do it then, but this year, I have made it the ending piece of my poetry unit. Here's how I run mine...

The basic idea is the same... I pick (maybe next year, I will let the students pick) 50 poems. I try to include as many different genres as possible. I choose 50 poems because the brackets can be set up with a number of byes-I have 14 poems that are not even read in the first round. This eliminates some of the repetition. I also post the brackets all over the school. Cafeteria, office, middle school hall, elementary hall (I teach in a K-8 school), anywhere I can put them. I already have had a number of people ask me about it. 

As for judging the poems. I have a variety of ways I am planning to do this. Today was the first day, and we just did, "which one do you like better?" It created a good amount of discussion. Other ways I am planning on judging the poems is by having the Kindergarteners judge a dramatic reading. My math class is going to vote on a few of the math poems. Which team can "act" out the poem the best, oral votes, silent votes, a spokesperson will persuade the class to vote a certain way...

This does not have to be the same thing every day. Fifty poems might be a bit much, but I am hoping the variety in judging will prevent the "tuning out" that happens whenever I try to do the same thing for a week or longer. 

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Here's how I did it...I have two sections of LangArts/Social Studies, so I did 32 poems in each class. I would read 2 or 4 each day, and they would vote. I did my usual poetry unit right along with this, and then by the time we got to the final four, they were well-versed in being able to analyze poetry and write about their favorites, and why they should be voted for. 

Oops...forgot the ending...when we got to the final two poems, I had both classes vote. So both groups heard different poems. I also put all the poems on overheads so they can read along as I read. I think that really helps them with understanding line breaks, and how to read aloud poetry. 

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I have four classes so it just works out nicely to do 16 poems from each class. Every person in every class starts by performing a poem and we vote on the top 16 from each class. We end up with one finalist from each class, then my team of teachers allow some flexibility and we get our whole team together to watch the semi-finals and finals as the four finalists perform for the whole team (102 kids). This really intimidates the four at first, but when they realize how much their classmates enjoy the performances, they loose that nervousness pretty quickly. This year I took 20 of the best performers around to the 6th grade classes to perform for them and that was a terrific experience.

This was my first year doing poetry madness and it was a huge success—one of those things kids are really excited about. I am going to work on finding a better variety of poems for next year though. Our library could really use some new resources when it comes to poems that middle school students enjoy. I saw way too much Silvertein and Pruletsky. 

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I too have pondered how to rearrange the poems within the brackets next year. I tried to be "fair" this year in balancing each side with exposure for all classes to major poets from the "serious"—Frost, Shakespeare, Teasdale, Dickenson—to "funny"—Morris Bishop, Prelutsky, Silverstein, and yes Jim Hall. In other words, I tried to put a Frost poem on each side or at least two poems of similar style and mood. (Everyone loves the Jim Hall "Maybe Dat's Yowr Pwoblem"—so much so that I even thought about not even entering it or any Silverstein next year at all!!!!  How's that for unstuffing the ballot box???? 7th graders definitely tilt toward the zany.)

So yeah, I thought about weighing all the humorous poets in against each other in the same bracket next year to knock some of them out, though then everyone won't get the broad exposure. To their credit with each vote, kids entered into serious discussion on poems like "Dog's Death" by John Updike, arguing "just because it's sad doesn't mean it's a BAD poem. It's really well written. Just sad." Hall DID beat out "Dog's Death." 

HOWEVER, at the same time as March Madness, I had kids writing poems of their own, researching a poet (I did nix Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss from the research list) and memorizing one of the poet's poems, and this definitely helped offset the defeat of one poet or poem. I'm embarrassed that I can't give credit to a specific individual on this listserv because in haste I deleted the address, but I used and revised a GREAT unit called "Poets are People Too" which hooked kids onto good online poetry sites. Many chose a poet who had been ousted out of the original "64" in the first round or so--and the online access helped kids find poets they hadn't read before, just because they were searching for poems they liked and thought they could recite!

One of the high points in the research came when two boys (both usually reluctant and habitually late when turning in most assignments) tracked Edgar Allen Poe's life and shared their new, daily findings with all within hearing--marriage to a first cousin who was 13, addiction to alcohol, death from a brain tumor which they figured was the cause of his hallucinations and nightmares . . . kind of a daily soap opera. One of the last research days, they reported breathlessly at the end of class, "Edgar Allen Poe's last words were 'God have mercy on my soul.'" When the following period entered from the hallway, new kids from the next class asked me, "Do you know what Edgar Allen Poe's dying words were?" Hot news! 

So—The writing and research and memorization helped offset the selection of the March Madness Champion, but I'm still not sure how I'm going to revise the whole shebang for next year. However, I'm sure this conversation will re-emerge.

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Have you given any thought to "installing" the winners of this year's March Madness Poetry Contest into some kind of Poetry Hall of Fame at your school? Consider some of the other poems as "Seniors" so they can't return; others as "Sophomores" and "Juniors," etc. Maybe even create some cards with class names on them and cards with poem titles, etc., and then match the cards in each set...."Chicago" and "Sophomore," thus this poem can return.

Also, next year place the students in groups and then let each group represent a region or category and let them find the poems and submit their final choices to be the 64-poem field. Perhaps this could be extra incentive for them to cheer their favorites and do a little "politicing" on the side.

COMMENTS

What do Auden, Frost, E.E. Cummings, Eve Merriam, Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisnernos, Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, Walter de la Mare, Edwin Hoey, Stephen Spender, Emily Dickenson, Robert Burns and Walt Whitman have in common?  They all wrote poems nominated by my kids for the tournament. The quality of the poetry the kids nominated knocked me out. I was unsure of what I would get, so I had several poems ready to plug in but didn't need 'em. I'm embarrassed that I so underestimated my students' judgment! I'm glad I tried my experiment.

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I'd do this again, but try to "play" another class—64 poems in one class is a lot! The kids have really enjoyed it, and it's been a great post-state test activity.  Good luck figuring it all out. (PS-I got observed during a match and the principal went nuts—he was thrilled.)

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Just some general thoughts on this fabulous idea, since I did it for the first time with my 7th graders last year: 
1.  The kids loved it.
2.  I worked it in to my annual poetry unit—killed two birds with one stone.
3.  64 poems, while incredibly enlightening, is just too much given curriculum demands, writing prompts, and testing, esp. if the poems are presented with meaning and time is allowed for exploration/questioning. This is a quality vs. quantity issue, and I definately will be cutting the number of poems I cover in half. I will still have the set-up, but I think I am going to use 32 poems instead of 64. Perhaps the other 32 could be a student assignment...find 32 awesome poems you'd consider "tournie-worthy??"

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I am in the final round of my March Madness (I know, it is almost May!), and this has been one of the most engaging activities I have done with my students in a long time. We have just had so much fun with it! Once again, thanks to everyone who contributed poems and ideas. Since my middle school loops our students, I have rethought what I will do for the two year cycle.

In 7th grade, I will provide many, many examples and have many conversations about poetry. In 8th grade, we will do March Madness and I will have students choose the poems to enter into the contest. I can't wait! (This year I chose, but I think it would be so much more effective if they chose) 

My question is....last week someone mentioned that their winner was "The Bagel" Could you please post a copy or tell me where I could get a copy? I don't want to think I'm missing out on a good middle school poem.

I found a copy here:  http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/062.html

2003 WINNERS  (PDF)           2002 WINNERS  (PDF)