Monday, November 26, 2007

How the discussion works

For those who are wondering how the actual four hours will be spent during our discussion, here's a little bit of a breakdown:

First, we'll spend a short period of time with introductions.

Then, we'll discuss some background of the Newbery Award and an overview of how the Newbery Committee operates.

After this we'll look look at each book on our list (see the sidebar) and discuss them in terms of the award criteria. We'll each have a chance to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each book and we'll compare them to each other.

Finally we'll do our balloting. We want to reach a consensus when we pick our Mock Newbery Winner an this process might take some time. Everyone will have a chance to vote (anonymously) on their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice, and these votes will be weighted. After we see what the numbers look like after our initial vote we'll have a chance for some more brief discussion, some elimination, and another vote, if needed.

In the end we'll have chosen our Mock Newbery Winner along with Mock Newbery Honor books!

Please do read all the books if you plan to attend - the voting and discussion is way more fun (and fair) if everyone has come prepared!

No comments: