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Norwayne earns third Battle of the Books crown
By Sarah A. Wise
NL Staff Writer
27 March 2008 — Those who think appreciation of the written word is a dying art haven’t met some of the kids at Norwayne Middle School.
For the third consecutive year, the Norwayne Battle of the Books team won the competition at the county level, and will move forward to regional competition.
Battle of the Books is a competition for middle schools organized by the North Carolina School Library Media Association. At the beginning of each school year, each school receives a list of 26 books on which an annual quiz-bowl type competition is based.
Over the course of the school year, students at participating schools can read the books on the list, and each school organizes a team of students to compete in the spring.
At Norwayne, students join the team simply by reading a book on the list and submitting ten questions to media coordinator Rhonda Nichols. The questions serve a dual purpose – they are documentation that participants have read the book, and they are practice questions for the team.
Rhonda said that this year, she actually had more kids interested than she had room for on the team. At the beginning of the school year, she said somewhere between 35 and 40 students had signed up to be on the team.
Over the course of the year, the number whittled down as students got involved in other projects. But as the final weeks closed in, Rhonda still had a team of 15 students. The limit for a competition team is 12.
So a team of kids interested in reading for fun experienced something that many of them had only seen happen with the schools’ athletic teams. A few members had to be cut from the competitive club in order for Norwayne to participate.
“I hated to do that,” said Rhonda. “It really upset me, but we just had too many kids interested.”
The team has practice once a week after school for an hour. During the practice time, they ask each other sample questions about the books on the list. The questions often include small details about character or plot that the students must have read carefully to remember.
The kids on the team admit that part of the reason they got involved with the team was that they are all pretty avid readers. But several students said their participation on the team has improved their reading skills.
“It makes you pay more attention to the details in what you read,” said eighth grader Brianna Holland.
Teammate Nick Cassady added that the reading list had also expanded the kind of books he would consider reading.
“It gives you a wider selection,” he said. “I found out I liked stuff that, based on the title, I never would have picked up.”
Rhonda added that she often finds that students who are especially good readers tend to be more selective about what they read. Being on the team has helped her kids at Norwayne to expand their literary horizons.
When the team begins to form, each of the students picks their own choice of reading from the list, and the team begins to get a solid base of knowledge for competition. But as the competition draws closer, the team members begin to focus in on novels that haven’t been as widely read by the team so that they can cover all of the material. Two members of this year’s team read all 26 books on the list, but Rhonda said all of the kids read around 15 books each.
The Norwayne team also has a range of grade levels and experience. All three middle grades are fairly evenly represented on this year’s team, and five of the team members have been on the team before.
Brianna said she joined for a second time because she enjoyed the experience, and she also enjoyed the camaraderie on the team.
“I’m really close with a lot of people on this year's team,” she said. “We’re like one big family.”
That comfort with each other, combined with experience and poise, helped this year’s team in a tough county-wide competition.
Several of the students said their key component was their ability to communicate well as a team, conferring on an answer to make sure they are in agreement.
Mackenzie Baker said that communication is especially intense when everyone does know the answer.
“They’ll read a question, and everyone knows the answer,” she said, “so everyone points at you and kind of yells the answer. It’s a little intimidating.”
Rhonda adds that poise and body language, which they focus on during practices, also helped the kids keep their composure and confidence during the competition. And the experienced members on the team may have led the kids to their victory.
“In the final against Mount Olive, it was close – too close for comfort,” she said. “But they only had one experienced member, and we had five. I think that made a lot of the difference for us.”
The kids will continue their weekly practices for regional competition. They will travel to Kinston on April 10 for regional competition against winners from nine other counties.
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