A game of Blooket is often used for classroom enrichment, but on Tuesday teams from across FISD will use it to answer questions during the Battle of the Books competition at Emerson High School.
“[In the Battle of the Books competition], teams from all high schools read books selected by FISD librarians and, at the end of the year, compete against all other FISD high schools and teams to be the best at book trivia and take home the Battle of the Books trophy,” librarian Chelsea Hamilton said. “Once students make their teams, [which consist of] 4 to 6 people, they divvy up the books between them. Every book doesn’t need to be read by each student, but all books should be read by at least 2 per group.”
Tuesday isn’t the only competition though. Rather, it’s the last of several rounds of competition.
“There are several rounds of the competition,” Hamilton said. “We’ve already done the seeding round, which puts teams into a bracket. This way we already have a plan on who is competing against who right when we get there. All rounds except finals will be on Blooket. The top scoring team from each round will go to the next. The final round is the top 2 teams and will be handwritten. All questions are worded so that the answer is always the title of the book and the author.”
Some students like junior Mahi Kosuri have a method for retaining information from the books.
“I personally prepare by reading the books and then watching a video debrief of the book to make sure I didn’t miss anything,” Kosuri said.
Both preparing and competing for the Battle of the Books are enjoyable, according to junior Sydney Kiely.
“It doesn’t require much studying, you really just have to read the books and know basic facts like the author’s name and the main characters and theme, so it’s pretty low stress, but you still get the excitement of competing,” Kiely said. “Also, it creates a deadline for you to have to read books you probably wouldn’t have read otherwise, so it’s a good way to make sure you read some books over the school year.”
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