HIS Reads Competition 2024

By Ellie McGuire & Nanako Dobashi; Photos by 

Introduction

HIS Reads is a competition that has been held annually since 2015. This tournament showcases a student’s ability to defend a book of their choosing and convince the audience why they should read their book. This year, HIS Reads was celebrated on May 24th alongside its other companion, HIS Writes. Sixteen high and middle schoolers stepped onto the big stage hoping to become the ultimate champion of reading and defending.

How To Become a Finalist

Throughout the whole year, middle and high school students prepare for this event by practicing all four rounds in their respective classrooms. From there, they receive feedback from their teacher on how they might improve their script to impress the judges at the competition. After all four practice rounds, students will then prepare for the qualifier rounds, where they will present all four rounds to a panel of judges. Depending on how well the student did, there will be two runners-up and one finalist chosen. The finalist will immediately be designated to perform in the competition while the runners-up will be put into a random list with a chance of being elected to become a finalist themselves.

What Happened at The Celebration

The event started out with Mr. Pangier introducing the history behind HIS Reads and HIS Writes. After that, the sixteen finalists were introduced and asked to come onto the stage. This was where the real competition started. As each student gave it their all to defend and convince the reader about their book, the brackets started to get filled with names. As time went on, the final competition between the two last remaining students crept closer and closer. Taking a short break before giving it their all, the two remaining readers took this chance to read over their script for the last time. Both students gave an outstanding performance and this year's competition was truly a sight to behold.

Once more, the competition was fierce, providing the five Finals judges with some tough decisions, but in the end, there can only be one Ultimate Defender of Reading.

Graduating senior Jiho, we hope you come back to grace the halls of HIS once again, even if it's only to admire your name on the celebratory HIS Reads plaque hanging just inside our genkan.

Conclusion

Thank you to all the judges for being there to celebrate literacy with us here at HIS, and to the parents who came to support our finalists. A very big thank you to Mr. Pangier for organizing the celebration and sharing his passion for literacy, and Mr. Katayama for setting up the mic, speakers, and camera to make the HIS Reads speeches look professional. 

We hope to see you next year, and good luck to all the students participating in HIS Reads or HIS Writes (or both!)