Educators must get creative to help inspire students to meet goals and push themselves. The Snowflake Junior High School librarian, Jennifer Hoopes, wanted to encourage the students to read and meet their accelerated reading goals so the Hoopes Challenge was created.
Last quarter students were asked to meet reading goals to earn the chance to either be players in a basketball game or to be a spectator of the game. The accelerated reading class who earned the most points in the quarter would have the opportunity to form a team to compete against a staff “dream team” made up of school staff and district superintendent, Hollis Merrell. Every student who met their goal was also allowed to skip accelerated reading class for one day and have extended lunch instead.
Students took the challenge seriously and surpassed expectations. The winning class Debra Trezise’s accelerated reading class, formed their team the Dust Devil’s. Trezise brought in high school students Troy Brinkerhoff and Devin Willis to act as coaches for the team.
The game was on March 30 and it was a packed house. Both teams went all out and the staff Dream Team led in points for much of the game. The Dust Devil’s played aggressively and never gave up. It came down to the wire as it was a tie game 35 to 35 in the final minutes. The students fought hard to the very end but in the final second of the game the staff scored the winning point to beat the students 37 to 35.
The crowd of students and spectators roared and began chanting rematch almost immediately. It was all in good fun and judging from the smiles on everyone’s faces it was a reading challenge that was well worth the work. “It was a great motivator,” said Hoopes.
