Subjects included in this Lesson Plan: All curricular areas, especially ELA, Social Studies, Science, Life Skills, Computer Skills, Art, Music, Math, etc. 

Brief Description:  The Battle of the Books team members will key questions and book reviews following specifically designed templates and save their documents as the title of each book.

A benefit of this activity and participating in the BOB competition is an increase in the number of students who love to read, an enticement for non-readers to participate in drop everything and read days or got caught reading pictures for the school’s web page, a positive reinforcement of the Accelerated Reader program, and an opportunity to follow the pied-piper—me!

Approximate time required: 47 minutes

Standard Course of Study Goals and Objectives 
English/Language Arts:  
3.3: The learner will develop criteria and evaluate the quality, relevance, and importance of the information and ideas.
Informational Skills:  
1.01: The learner will participate in read-aloud, storytelling, booktalking, silent and voluntary reading experiences.
1.02: The learner will demonstrate competence and self-motivation as a beginning reader.
1.05: The learner will demonstrate a sense of story (e.g. beginning, middle, end, characters, details).
5.01: The learner will respond to reading, listening, viewing experiences orally, artistically, dramatically through various formats.
5:02: The learner will produce media in various formats (e.g. pictorial, multimedia)
Technology
Sixth:
2.1 Use keyboarding skills to increase productivity and accuracy. 
2.2 Create/modify a database relevant to classroom assignments. 
2.3 Search and sort information using more than one criterion and explain strategies used to locate information.
3.2 Use word processing/desktop publishing applications to create documents related to content areas. 
3.3 Use information located in database files to create/modify a personal product.
Seventh (above's SCOS plus)
3.3 Research, create, publish, and present projects related to content areas using a variety of technological tools.
Eighth (above's SCOS)

Teacher's Lesson Goals/Objectives: The behavioral objective is a complete set of questions and book reviews for each book on the 2001-2002 North Carolina Battle of the Books competition.

The student will be able to participate in the countywide Middle Level Battle of the Books competition using a variety of strategies before, during, and after reading literary, informational and practical texts.

Materials/Resources Needed: 

1. A list of the 2001-2002 NC Battle of the Books 
2. The books for the BOB competition 
3. The BOB Handbook of Rules and Regulations 
4. BOB Coaches Notebook (created each year) 
5. Computers with Windows operating system (may use a Mac but must create the templates) 
6. Computer discs with templates 
7. NC State Battle of the Books WebPage  http://www.ccs.k12.nc.us/stateBOB/
8. Authors’ WebPage http://www.sharondraper.com
9. WebPages for young adult books and award winning books http://www.ncslma.org and http://www.ala.org/yalsa/.
10. Computer
11. Database program (Access, AppleWorks database)
12. Printer and Paper

Pre Activities: 

1. The purpose of this activity is to organize numerous rounds of BOB questions in preparation for the countywide competition.  
2. The students will need to begin reading the books on the BOB list. 
3. The students will choose at least one book they have read to key a set of questions and book review.
4. Students will go to the websites listed in the Materials/Resources to help with the development of BOB questions. 
5. Students will enter their questions into a database. (Fields:  Book, Author, Degree of Difficulty, Question, page #, Mastered)
6. As each book is completed, a record will be kept and each book on the list will be checked-off. 
7. Then another team member will proof the questions and book review for accuracy, grammar, and degree of difficulty. 
8. Students will use the database to sort questions to help prepare for simulating BOB competitive rounds. 

Activities:

Teacher Input:

1. The teacher will review the Battle of the Books rules and procedures for competition. 
2. The students will be given a copy of the pertinent rules and procedures for receiving and answering questions including time, challenges, and demeanor. 
3. The teacher will give instructions on how to conduct a round.  
4. Then direct the two teams of 6 students through a practice round.  
5. The teacher will keep a record throughout the year on each team member including the number of books read, their Accelerated Reader score on each quiz, the books they have chosen to be an expert. 
6. The teacher will give instructions on how to complete a book review and how to write appropriate questions at different levels of difficulty, both in a specific BOB format.

Guided Practice and Independent Practice:

1. The students will participate in practice rounds.  The teacher will keep a record of questions asked, if answers are correct or incorrect, and if the “expert” really knows the book.  The questions that are incorrect will be filtered through again during another practice round. 
2. The students will key book reviews and questions in BOB format that they have already prepared outside of team meetings and practices.

Closure: 

• Briefly review the books that the students are the most familiar with--meaning books that they answered the questions correctly. 
• Briefly review the books that the students are not familiar with—meaning there is a weakness in that book.  (Questions not mastered according to the database.)
• Discuss the record of the number of books read list and the expert list and check for balance.

Assessment: 

Pre-assessment: 
Students have a record of books read and experts on books.  Students have checked off on the BOB books read chart and balance the expert list.

Post-assessment: At each practice, have each team member give one fact that they learned today from a book read or question asked during the round.  A final assessment will be the practice round notebook of questions, scores from each team at each practice (a list of members on each team during practice will be kept so that strengths and weaknesses are apparent).  Students will keep a printed copy of the BOB database to practice a home.  Students will use a computer to sort the BOB database questions differently at each meeting and practice.

Students will be assessed on number of questions mastered.