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”

“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. Tolstoy A.N. Tolstoy A.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