At the start of the Marquette Reading Marathon,Brittany Sharitz, language arts teacher, came up with a unique way to get her classes reading.

“The Brag Board helps encourage students to read by encouraging some friendly competition,” Sharitz said. “There are some other ways to have success. [The students] also set some goals and meeting those goals will help them as well.”

The Brag Board is a large bulletin board in Sharitz’s classroom. Here, students put up slips of paper with the title of the book and also including their rating and recommendation for other readers. Each class has a section on the board and whichever class has the most slips at the end of the year wins.

In a battle for prizes such as candy and books, students try to beat their peers in the reading race. However, the ultimate prize is bragging rights.

“I have pinned my ALARP classes and my 9th honors classes against each other and I’m hoping they each try to read more than the others,” Sharitz said .

David Pisoni, freshman,  reread the Percy Jackson series in order to help his class win.

“I really enjoyed [The Percy Jackson Series], and I figured it was something that I could get out of the way quickly to put up on the Brag Board.” Pisoni said.

Like Pisoni, Anna Mae Williams, freshman, read The Help, The Little Prince, and Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.

Many other students such as Rachel Yue, freshman, also read in order to win.

“I read a lot in the first place but I’m a bit competitive at the same time so it encourages me to record the books I read and it encourages me to read a little bit more everyday.”  said Yue.

Vishnu Kanikkannan read Son of the Mob and Champions for his 9th grade LA class.

“It gives me a motivation to read, and I’ve really been fueled by competition,” Kanikkannan said . “As [more] competition comes on, I want to read more and more.”

Sharitz said the ultimate goal of the Brag Board is to get students reading and further develop their education.

“I could write a whole book on how reading helps benefit students’ education,” Sharitz said, “Developing a habit of reading before going to college is one of the best ways to prepare for the amount of work and the amount of reading students will have when they get to that level.”