Basic NH POL Program Check List

Here's a basic check list for setting up and running your NH Poetry Out Loud Program:

1. Talk with teachers at your school: who will participate this year?
2. Set a school competition date-  plan for a maximum 2 hour event. Decide if during school day or an evening event works best for your school. Book the space.
3. Deadline for school competitions: before February 22, but you may want to set your date priro to Feb. 17, as we are incorporating a new Student Clinic event for school champions and alternate champions on that date.
4. Send NH POL team your date.
5. Back plan from your school competition date to incorporate any amount of the Poetry Out Loud curriculum you and your teachers want to apply.
6. Read through the Teacher Toolkit , and encourage your fellow teachers to do the same.
7. Figure out how many "classrooms" will be participating, and plan how "classroom competitions" will feed into your  "all school competition".
8. Recruit 3-5 performance judges, 1 accuracy judge, 1 prompter, 1-2 scorers for your school competition
9. Get a team together to plan your school championship event, delegate paperwork, refreshments, music interlude, programs, etc
10. Incorporate poetry into your curriculum- remember there are lesson plans and helpful resources in your toolkit and online to help with this.
11. Help student competitors to choose their poems- must be from the www.poetryoutloud.org poem list.
12. Hold your classroom competitions
13. Hold your all school competition
14. Report your school champion and alternate champion to NH POL team
15. make sure your champion and alternate champion have 3 poems ready for state semifinals
16. Have your school champion and alternate champion fill out/submit state semifinal registration forms.
17. Help your champion/alternate champion prepare for semifinals.
18. Accompany your champion/alternate champion to semifinals.