Motivating Citizens to Read Through Intellectual Contests in Libraries

 
The 18th European Conference on Reading
August, 2013, Jönköping, Sweden
Intellectual contests in the library
as a method to raise motivation for reading
Maria Belokolenko
(Russia)
Vice-president, Reading Association of Russia
Assistant director, Centralized Library System of South-West Moscow region

Moscow
11 977 988 people (at 01.01.2013)
New regions of Moscow are marked as number
11 and 12.
Real problems to motivate citizens to reading.
• The citizens work and study hard.
• They are haunted by lots of information.
• The citizens have got tons of opportunities for
entertainment in their free time.

Moscow
460 the state public libraries:
• 36 Central regional libraries
• 158 children's libraries
2000 school libraries

Centralized Library System
of South-West Moscow region
 Registered Readers – 100 thousand people
 N of yearly library visits – 900 thousand
 N of books – 1 mln
 N of available documents – 2,5 mln
 N of participants in cultural events – 120 thousand
people
 Staff – 250 people
Central Library has taken part in plenty
of Russian-Italian culture programs
and was a founder of Moscow branch
of Dante Alighieri Society,
the library was named after him in 2007.

A 3D tour around the library
is available at
www.cbs-uz.ru
The Central Library named after Dante Alighieri

“Library without Walls” (2008-2013…)
The adults are eager to test their knowledge and
the knowledge of their children. The children like
doing riddles and be awarded for good answers.

“Super-reader”
•For letter з(z) – «Turn down a page miss a move».
•«If your decision to subscribe to a library is strong – you make one move forward» (near letter ъ – it is
a sign of hard pronunciation).
•«If you gave your friend a soft advice to subscribe to a library – 2 moves forward» (near letter ь, that
is a sign of soft pronunciation).

“Super-reader”
RULES of the GAME
•Number of players – people or families – from 1 to 3.
•Each player (team) gets a flag of a certain color.
•Players cast a cube (dice) in turn.
•Figures from 1 to 6 mean the number of moves and
the number of AUTHORS a reader should name.
•All the players play up to the end and get reward.
The process of recalling the author’s name is accompanied
by the remarks: «I have read it!», «You have read it at
school», «We read it last summer, remember?», «I wish my
granny were here!»…

“Super-reader”
Bunin Pasternak Sholohov Solzhenitsin
L.N. TolstoyA.N. TolstoyA.K. Tolstoy
The writer is a Nobel prize winner

Creative contests
photo / picture exhibitions
computer presentations
writing essays •reading practice
•finding ‘the right’ sources of information
•analyzing
•synthesizing
•generalizing
•citing
•critical thinking
•individual projects
•IT and media skills
•reading from screen

Oral reading contests
Around reading:
o choose a poem or a passage
o a lot of quality material
o a lot of non-fiction
o magic of declamation
o the prizes are always connected with the texts

Oral reading contests
Themes
English poetry
Russian
history
Italian poetry
Russian
poetry

‘The Divine Comedy’ by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
10-grade student Cyrill Bukhtijarov ‘s brilliant
declamation of Canto twenty one (from Part
Paradiso) led him to the first place.
Sergey Belanivsky got the 2 place
for reciting Canto 6 (from Part Inferno).

“The Canzoniere” by Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) and
“Jerusalem Delivered“by Tarkvato Tasso (1544-1595)
A student of philosophy faculty of Moscow
state University after Lomonosov Ivan
Agapkin got the honorary second place.
Grand-prix – Yuri Cukanov
(7-th grade)
First place – Elina Saythanova
(7-th grade)

“Following the connections of times”
11/2012
139 participants read 129 works

«Towards the Vortices ...» George Byron
• «She walks in beauty» was recited
39 times,
• «My Soul Is Dark» –18 times,
• «I would I were a careless child» –
13 times,
• «The Cornelian» – 10 times,
• «The Famous Greek War Song» –
9 times.
91 works of Byron: lyrics, carols, ballads, fragments
from poems – recited in both Russian and English.

Younger pupils got the upper hand over their elder comrades
Grand-prix for ‘Devine Comedy” by
Dante Alighieri was awarded to a duet of
two young readers of the 1 and 3 grade!
The girls dramatized Canto 25 from
«Purgatorio».
Elizaveta Titova, a 5-grade pupil who missed
the contest of her age because of illness. She
competed with older students and was so
emotional in her recitation of «The Famous
Greek War Song» by George Byron that got
the main reward by unanimous decision of
the Jury.

 «The Divine Comedy» by Dante Alighieri (Feb.–April 2011) – 35 participants
 «Italian poetry». Petrarca and Tasso (Oct.–Nov. 2011) – 58 participants.
 «Not for nothing all Russia remembers…» (Feb.-April 2012) – 155 people
 «Following the connections of times» (Nov. 2012) – 176 people
 «Toward the Vortex”. George Byron. (Jan.-March 2013) – 290 people
The number of participants is growing

Certificate of attendance and a participant badge

A chance to award a bigger number of the participants
Age groups is carried out accordingl
to the number of applicants:
• 2 groups: before and after 18.
• 3 groups: grades – 1-5, 6-8, 9-11.
• 5 groups: 1-5 grades; 6-7 grades;
8 grade; 9 grade; 10-11 grades , students and adults.

Jury
Unbiased assessment is supported by the number of Jury members.
Experience show that the best number is 5.
Experts from various spheres of life:
 Philologists and native speakers
 Literary critics
 Historians
 Poets
 Actors or stage directors
 Librarians
 Members of Reading Association of Russia

Jury
Three criteria for assessment
1. Text knowledge
2. Acting mastery
3. Figurativeness, picturesqueness,
expressiveness, emotionality
Each criteria gets from 1 to 5 points,
maximum is 15.
NOTES
• A good presentation but it lacks drive
• Creative image
• Like in school
• A very expressive reading
• THE READER!!! Great!
• I believe it
• Makes one cry
• Hysteric intonation
• Very simple
• Prose, a difficult text
• A brick!
• No dynamism
• Too quiet
• Absolute comprehension of Byron lyrics
• Not correctly accentuated
• Why did you become so quiet at the end?
• Great!!!

The results of the contest - in social nets and library sites
www.cbs-uz.ru
https://www.facebook.com/CbsUgoZapad
http://www.youtube.com/user/cbsuz

Conclusions
The contests =
• to pay attention to the library
• tool of reading motivation
• choice of reading material, sharing and reward
• inspires people of all ages
• friendly relations
• media coverage
• collaboration with schools, museums, publishers, etc.
• promote reading and creativity

Maria Belokolenko
Vice-president, Reading Association of Russia
Assistant director, Centralized Library System of South-West Moscow region
sistemology@mail.ru
Thank you for attention

Motivating Citizens to Read Through Intellectual Contests in Libraries

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