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ASHLAND MIDDLE SCHOOL Reading for sport builds mental muscles Students flex their reading muscles for Oregon Battle of the Books Comment By Joe Zavala DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Posted Feb. 20, 2015 at 10:42 AM Updated Feb 22, 2015 at 12:56 PM By Joe Zavala Posted Feb. 20, 2015 at 10:42 AM Updated Feb 22, 2015 at 12:56 PM » RELATED CONTENT • Mushrooms best the Novelists • Bowling for knowledge • Battle of the Books » Social News There were only a few spectators looking for a place to sit when the competitors filed into a classroom tucked away in a quiet corner of Ashland Middle School on Thursday, but the sparse attendance did little to cut the tension, especially after moderator Candice Chapman, flanked by two judges, laid out some ground rules. No. 1, she said: They must lower their voices when the other team is up. It’s distracting, and (Candice Chapman says this in a whisper, a secret tip) “You might give away the answer.” A coin flip determined which team would go first, then it was on — the Psychic Turtles versus Into the Books. For the bookworms now facing each other in small desk groupings, this was the opening tip, the kickoff, the first serve for a competition that they had been preparing for since September. And unlike sports, there are no preseason events prior to the Oregon Battle of the Books. They read, make notes and quiz each other for about six months, then one day the OBOB competition begins. For Ashland Middle Schoolers, that day was Thursday and it wraps up with the finals today, Friday. “Oh yes, it’s very nerve-racking,” said Chapman, an educational assistant and community volunteer who also moderates Brain Bowl competitions for AMS. “I get really nervous. I get nervous for them but I also get nervous because I want to judge them fairly when there’s a questionable answer. Sometimes that happens.” The Psychic Turtles and Into the Books were two of 12 teams competing for the top prize, starting with Thursday’s round-robin matches and continuing with today’s single-elimination tournament, which will determine the school’s representative at the Grade 6-8 Region 5 competition (Feb. 28 at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Medford). Win that, and you move on to the OBOB state tournament, something AMS pulled off two years ago. The format is simple. The teams of four or five (some teams carry an alternate) take turns answering questions from a list of 16 books, a diverse collection the OBOB selection committee hand picks more than a year in advance. This year’s selections include “Bomb” by Steve Sheinkin, “Code Talker” by Joseph Bruchac, “Endangered” by Eliot Schrefer” and “Freak the Mighty” by Rodman Philbrick. There are eight questions in each of the two rounds. In the first round teams are awarded three points for naming the book described and two points for naming the author. The questions are not easy. A sample: “In which book does a memo state that certain students will need a human growth and development summer school class?” A team named Spoons correctly answered “Ungifted” by Gordon Korman. The stakes are raised for the second round. The questions, now worth five points, are of the fill-in-the-blank variety and often require detailed knowledge of plotlines, characters, locations and even dialogue. Competitors were cramming with note cards in the AMS library before the competition was set to begin Thursday, memorizing facts both significant and mundane. “In ‘True Legend,’ how do Drew’s parents die?” another moderator asks a group of sixth graders. After some intense discussion, a few shrugs and some emphatic nodding, the answer provided by The Trombone Players was “a car crash.” Nailed it. “It was different because a lot of times you just read for pleasure, but for this you have to focus on every single detail,” said seventh-grader Lilli Morrish, a member of the Spoons. “You’ll come across a number in a book, say it’s a character’s weight or their blood type or whatever, and you have to focus on it, you have to remember it because you know that a question will probably come up about that. It’s a different kind of reading.” It was still fun, said Morrish, and eye-opening because it forced her to expand her horizons. Morrish counts Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” as her favorite book, but found that she enjoyed genres that she may not have bothered with were it not for OBOB. Her teammates must have had similar experiences. The Spoons answered 10 out of 11 questions correctly Thursday to beat Gryffindor 50-25. “Since I do read a fairly diverse spectrum of books, it wasn't that weird for me to be venturing out of my comfort zone,” Morrish said. “There were some books like ‘Code Talker.’ I normally don’t read sort of books that have military plot lines and it was interesting. I think I probably wouldn't have read it on my own time but it was interesting to at least, people that do read those books, to see what they see in them. I like that.” Seventh-grader Eli Westrick, who already has four OBOB’s under his belt, also found himself absorbed unexpectedly by one of the selections — “The Ruins of Gorlan” by John Flanagan — but was careful not to get carried away. For the sake of the competition, he said, it’s best to put off reading a sequel to one of the selections, lest you muddle the timeline. “So you’ll forget where it ends,” Westrick said. “But I really like that book because it had a lot of great characters and I thought it was really fun to read.” After each competition the students shake hands, then head back to the library to prepare for the next session. Thursday’s round-robin matchups were used to seed today’s single-elimination tournament. The final match is tentatively scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at AMS. Anybody who wants to watch must first check in at the main office. Karl Pryor, a teacher at AMS who heads up the school’s OBOB competition, would love to see Ashland produce another Region 5 champion, but says even if that doesn't happen the students have already received another significant reward for their efforts: an excuse to read. “For me, it’s a reading incentive program,” he said. “It’s a program that helps kids read outside of their comfort levels because there are 16 books, some nonfiction, some adventure, some fantasy, some sports books. So kids read outside the area that they normally chose. That’s one of the things that I see. But it’s also just an encouragement to read, to read a lot and to read carefully.”  Joe Zavala can be reached at 541-776-4469 or [email protected]. By Joe Zavala DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Posted Feb. 20, 2015 at 10:42 AM Updated Feb 22, 2015 at 12:56 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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