Classroom Contest

Here’s how to bring our recitation contest into your classroom, whether your students are competing in the Junior Competition (grades 6-8) or the Senior Competition (grades 9-12):

1. Each student finds, memorizes, and practices their recitation of one poem selected from our English anthology [5] or our French anthology [6]. Be sure they select poems for grades 6-8 [7]for the Junior Recitation Competition or poems for grades 9-12 [8] for the Senior Recitation Competition.
2. Students recite for the class and their recitations are evaluated using our Scoring Rubric [9], Evaluation Sheet [10], and Accuracy Score Sheet [11].
3. The student with the highest score is named your classroom champion. If there’s a tie, refer to our Rules [12] to break it.

KEEP IT GOING...

Ask your colleagues if they’ve also named a champion or champions in their classrooms. If so, you can prepare for the school contest [13].

If only one classroom champion is named and no school contest is to be held,* you can now prep that student for the Junior Online Finals or the Senior  [14]Online Qualifiers (formerly known as the Online Semifinals [15]).

OR END IT HERE?

We hope that you’ll encourage your classroom champion to move on to the school contest [13] and beyond; however, you and your students may decide to end your involvement with Poetry In Voice here. Through exploration, memorization, and performance, your students will have developed a personal relationship with poetry — and that’s invaluable.

*We strongly recommend that any student who advances from a grade 9-12 classroom contest directly to the Senior Online Qualifiers be given the opportunity to recite both of their poems in front of a large audience, for example, at an assembly. Whenever possible, have these students recite using a microphone on a stand (a microphone will be used at the National Finals).